And yet Corduroy Ellie did not let the doubt and fear win. As a reasonably talented person who is also part fraud, I cannot praise highly enough the virtues of enthusiasm and tenacity as substitutes for finely honed skills or intensive training. And in this book, Reader, I will tell you about the numerous times that I have made up in pluck what I have lacked in natural ability.

Some people are just born with natural talents. They may be naturally inclined toward music or dancing or working with numbers; so, it’s easier for them to hone those skills. You can’t really control that. What you can control, however, is how hard you work. How much effort you’re willing to put in, how willing you are to stick it out when things don’t go your way.

Work ethic is working hard when no one is looking, when no one else would care. Perhaps Ellie Kemper is being far too humble about her skills and talents as an actress, but one big takeaway I got from reading My Squirrel Days is that the steadfast positivity she portrays on television reflects her actual personality… or at least the personality she portrays in the book.

If you’re like me, you know her best for playing Erin on The Office, a role she landed partly through chance (and partly through tenacity). It’s almost the same kind of happenstance that led to her leading role in Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. For the most part, her only experience had been working improv and doing commercials; The Office was her first major role on a television series, even if she was #18 on the cast list.

I knew that every horse could be tamed, but I also knew there was a reason cowboys drank.

You might say that Ellie Kemper came from a place of relative privilege. And it is partly because she came from such a position that she was “free” to explore such opportunities. Perhaps. But that also downplays the fact that she got a BA from Princeton University. That’s an accomplishment in and of itself.

And earning any sort of living from actor is certainly a near-impossible horse to be tamed. But just because something is difficult doesn’t mean it should be avoided. Indeed, if it’s something that’s really important to you, that’s all the more reason why you need to work that much harder to achieve it.

As Paul played some light piano accompaniment, Dave and I watched the toaster for a good two and a half minutes. That was precisely the idea: to waste several minutes of national airtime watching bread toast. Miraculously, when the toast popped out, you could make out Dave’s and Paul’s faces. Dave offered some jam and butter, and the three of us ate the most delicious meal of my life. I know it wasn’t Christ’s face on a piece of linen cloth, but it was Dave’s face on potato bread. Thanks to bombing five years earlier, I got to experience a true moment of joy: I did a stupid bit with a comedy hero—and it wasn’t boring. Or, it was, but it was boring in a good way.

You see, here’s the thing. Luck probably had something to do with what Ellie Kemper has been able to accomplish. Chance encounters, failed auditions that led to new opportunities… but it’s her “pluck” that motivated her to show up for meetings two hours early, just to be sure she wouldn’t be late.

The harder you work, the luckier you’ll be. You’ve got to be willing to meet “luck” halfway. And that’s how you can end up on the Late Show, demonstrating a toaster that imprints the faces of David Letterman and Paul Shaffer on potato bread. Fortune favors the vigilant perhaps even more than she favors the bold.

If Kimmy Schmidt can remain hopeful, then you can too. One of my great hobbies in life is feeling sorry for myself. Nothing makes me feel more alive than when I suspect I have been wronged. Oh, the energy! But this character, Kimmy, this young woman who was kidnapped while walking to school one morning and then held captive in an underground bunker where she was tortured repeatedly for fifteen years, this woman insists on looking at the bright side of things.

Life is hard. And it can feel incredibly unfair at times. All that said, while we cannot control the hand we are dealt, we can control how we choose to play it. And we can control how hard we’re willing to work at it, and how enthusiastic we want to be about the whole thing. I’m hardly unbreakable — no one really is — but I’m grateful to still be playing the game at all.