It's been 6 months since I started working on Glossa. The biggest surprise has been around something I thought I loved doing - and now don't miss at all.
In my past roles - especially in product - I spent most of my time aligning decisions with stakeholders: getting buy-in, communicating decisions, managing feelings. I'm a little embarrassed to admit this, but I thought this was my superpower.
Now, every decision is mine. I don't align with anyone. I don't have to make decks showing all the options we considered, or present at all-hands meetings, or spend hours making people feel heard.
I thought I would miss the collaboration, the brainstorming, the strategizing.
But I don't. It's incredibly liberating to just... act. Looking back, I'm kind of horrified by how much of my day I spent making and aligning decisions with other people.
It is a little unnerving to find out that things you thought were core to who you are were actually the result of where you worked.