Ready for My 'Next Play'

Revamping Mint, traveling Asia and switching companies have made for an eventful 2 months. So what’s next?

A little less than 2 years ago I walked across the stage for my undergraduate commencement ceremony. In the months that followed, my life became a blur as I traveled across Europe solo then came back and immediately drove across the country to start my new life in California.

In some ways, these past 2 months have felt like a repeat of that time period as I recently decided to leave my role at Intuit, travel for 3 weeks in Asia and now prepare to start my new role at LinkedIn on Monday. 

While these changes have definitely helped me grow, I worry that this much change without any reflection would be a missed opportunity. I believe in trying to live in the present as much as possible, but before I do that I wanted to spend at least a little time reflecting on the recent past.

Below are my reflections on the big events that have occurred in my life in the past 2 months.

Humbled in Spite of Results

I’ve largely talked about my experience at Mint in an overwhelmingly positive light, but now that I’ve spent some time removed from the project I can reflect a little more honestly.

Overall the Mint revamp outperformed just about every metric we set from a customer, business and partner standpoint. This is even more impressive given that the odds were stacked against our small working team from a resource and timeline perspective. 

That being said, I can say that the Mint revamp was a huge challenge for me personally. The project amplified my strengths as well as my weaknesses, but it is the weaknesses and resulting mistakes that I will remember the most about the project.

I won’t delve into what those mistakes were in this post (perhaps in a future post), however the weaknesses revealed by my “Trial by fire” experience at Mint will be a point of emphasis for me coming into my next role.

We often talk about learning lessons in the form of extremes. Either through extreme failures or extreme successes. What we don't talk about enough are the hybrid experiences, in which we are proud of the 'What' but disappointed with the 'How' (or vice-versa).

In sports, the best teams & individual athletes spend as much time analyzing their wins as they do their losses. There are often errors in our achievements that can be exposed at a later point in time if not corrected. In my head I'm re-watching 'the tape' of our last product launch and brainstorming how to ensure that the execution is even better next time around.

Making the Jump 

It feels weird to be talking about leaving Intuit less than 2 years after I joined. My timeline suggests that I didn’t enjoy my time at Intuit, which couldn’t be further from the truth. I have never learned so much while simultaneously having so much fun than during my time at Intuit. I honestly couldn't imagine a better place to have started my career than at Intuit.

There were a number of factors that lead to my voluntary exit from Intuit, from the tangible factors such as ditching my 3-hour commute, immediate strong connections with people at LinkedIn, and awesome perks (who doesn't love free food). To the more abstract pulls such as the desire to disrupt my life, broadening my learning opportunities and having passion for the new project areas (Global economic opportunity, online content and marketing). 

I can’t point to one factor in particular that stuck out among the rest; in fact, it was probably a mix of a number of these factors that led to my decision. However I can say two things for certain. One, is that I will forever be grateful for my time at Intuit and the lifelong connections that I formed during my time there. The second is that my gut tells me that making the move to LinkedIn is the right decision, and I've learned not to doubt my gut when it comes to decisions such as this one.

(Temporarily) Escaping the Valley Bubble

Most of the time I can verbally state my awareness that I live in some type of bubble in Silicon Valley, but I don't truly feel it until I spend an extended period of time away.

I made a last-minute decision to travel to Indonesia and Japan for a few weeks before I started at LinkedIn, rather than kicking back. While the trip felt more like a challenge than a vacation at times, I am happy that I made the decision to get out of the country.

Each place I visited had one or two aspects that stuck out to me. In Indonesia, the overall level of happiness seemed to be unusually high. People spent less time glued to devices, smiled more frequently and seemed more community-focused as opposed to individual-focused.

In Japan I was blown away by the organization and structure that permeated throughout its society. Each day I watched tens of thousands of business professionals dressed in suits file into and out of their offices. Their formal suits stood in stark contrast to the Silicon Valley 'uniform' of a t-shirt and jeans that I had grown accustomed to.

Japan's public transportation infrastructure also runs circles around the Bay as their combination of subways, buses and high-speed rails made it possible to get virtually anywhere in a city (or country) for a very affordable price.

Of course neither of these countries were perfect, however I was inspired by elements of each and am brainstorming ways in which we can bring the positive aspects into our community here.

The Next Play Starts Now

At times I feel like my life is moving too fast. I would love to devote a month to digesting and analyzing everything that has happened at work and in my travels. However, I've learned that "just doing" is a form of reflection in and of itself.

I'm grateful for these recent experiences, both the good and the bad, and will take them with me as I move forward. However, the time for reflection has passed. Life has blown the whistle, and I'm already back on the court.

The next play starts now!

---

For those that are wondering, I will be based out of LinkedIn's SF offices working as a Product Manager on Elevate and Company Pages.