The Missing Piece in Change

// The Gap

I remember a moment not long after leaving SAFI where something felt… off. It's been over two years since I departed that company and that industry

Nothing had gone wrong specifically after I'd left and there was no clear trigger for the feeling - the move itself made sense, and I stand by it, the decision was made for my own mental health and for the chance to check on something new -but I think there was a subtle shift in how I experienced things day to day, conversations felt slightly heavier and my decisions took a fraction longer.

There was a layer of thought where there hadn’t been one before - looking back, it wasn’t dramatic enough to be visible or noticeable to me but with hindsight comes a greater clarity - it was there.

And I think that’s the part I hadn’t really accounted for - the internal shift that happens when you remove yourself from an industry where you’ve built history - an understanding of the cadence of things, the way people interact and how people get things done - it's definitely different to the way business works in the world I live in now.

// The Industry

At SAFI, at Goodwater, at Clearwater - there was a depth to everything I did that I probably took for granted at the time because it wasn't just the knowledge of the product or the industry, but an understanding of how things actually worked beneath the surface.

The patterns and the people - the unspoken context that sits behind most conversations in an industry which was built on service, technicality and obviously a long history of trade - you build that slowly, over years and at some point, it stops feeling like something you’ve learned and starts feeling like something you are. You become the voice of the industry, understanding how it flows, the nuances of the way things work and I think there’s a level of confidence in that.

It's not something you think about consciously, but something that shapes how you operate and you trust your instincts because they’ve been tested enough times to hold their weight in a way that isn't always visible. You've been exposed to enough scenarios that you become accustomed to working in a particular way and you don’t need to prove it to yourself anymore.

It’s just there.

And then you step into something else - a different dance groove and a it's like a different beat.

Like going from RnB and stepping into a dance tent - you need to adjust and you can see the way things work but they're just at a different beat.

// The Shift

What I didn’t expect was how much of that confidence was tied to the environment itself - not in a superficial way, but in a deeper, structural sense because when I moved into Yammayap, I wasn’t carrying the same level of embedded understanding.

I was learning again - something that I love to do - expose myself to a space which is new and grasp it with both hands because you're not starting from zero, but you're entering the dance floor at a different starting point with a different set of assumptions, dancing to a different beat - that changes how you show up.

I've found that you notice it in small ways - the extra pause before speaking and then the unconscious need to check your thinking. There is a weird space that you're living in because there is an awareness that you’re still forming your perspective rather than drawing from something already shaped - as I said, it’s subtle and when you step into a new beat, it's not always noticeable but it could be just the tempo or the key of the song.

You know it's not right, you dance along regardless and you can see how things are progressing but once or twice, you see that you're out of step with everyone else and you reset - you go back to the beat of four and start over but over time, it accumulates - you end up dancing an entirely different beat and you're doing your best to stick with the track but it's just not with you.

// The Gain?

I think we often talk about change in terms of gain - I know I did when I joined Yammayap - I was moving to experience new things and I wanted to make a conscious step to experience creativity and grasp new opportunities. I was taking on a new direction to find and experience new challenges - all of that is true and it's been a huge gain to my career and life.

But there’s another side to it that’s harder to describe, because it doesn’t fit neatly into that narrative - I think there is a loss involved too. I've been trying to put my finger on it because it's not a loss of ability - thats still there because you don't lose the skills you've learned but you're experience a loser of immediacy - you take just a little bit longer to do things.

At SAFI, I could move quickly because I had context - I could rely on instinct because it had been reinforced over time.

In a new space, that immediacy isn’t there in the same way and you have to pause and double check what you're doing - you’re still capable and you are still thinking - essentially you're still moving forward but again (to take it back to the music analogy) - it's just on a different beat.

You're dancing but without the same level of internal certainty behind it and that can feel like something has been taken away, even when it hasn’t - does that make sense?

Your previous level of confidence is just not accessible in the same form.

// Identity

I don’t think I ever consciously tied my identity to one industry or one role - I created my own identity and ran it through an industry but looking back, it’s clear that a lot of how I saw myself was shaped by the consistency of being in that environment. I'd developed a level of confidence in my own ability as I was able to unconsciously show up with a level of competency and complete work without thought.

When you're operating in an unfamiliar environment, you need to think about the steps and the beat all the time.

If you're operating in an industry and environment you're familiar with - you become someone who knows, someone who understands the nuance of things and someone who can navigate complexity without needing to stop and think too hard about it - its natural.

When that consistency is removed, there’s a period where that sense of self becomes less defined - it's not gone - it's just as easy to operate on a particular level.

I think of it like the film 'Antz' - remember that film? Where the ant in question doesn't believe he's 'born' into a role or a position in the colony but instead, he want's to forge his own path - I believe there is a level of that because when we grow up, we should try, experiment and find out what excites us - sales is that for me but do you, at some point, get too old to 'teach an old dog new tricks?'

I mean, you’re still the same person, but without the same anchors to an industry which runs in a particular way? I think that can make things feel slightly unsteady, even if everything else is moving in the right direction - you're just running a little harder to stick with it.

// Rebuilding.

There isn’t a moment where this resolves itself all at once, I think it’s slower than that but you begin to accumulate new context and there are new experiences that start to fill in the gaps between experience in another industry and the one you're in and you begin to notice moments where your thinking feels more grounded again - you start to feel like your decisions come a little quicker and there is a return to where your voice sounds more like your own - it doesn’t happen in a straight line and there are days where you feel like you’re getting there, and others where the gap feels more obvious.

And I think that’s part of the process.

Not something to rush through, but something to move with and go with - you have to experience the new industry and get used to how the beat builds, the rise and fall of the melody and you have to experience it over and over again just to learn how it all goes.

What’s changed for me recently is how I interpret that feeling because early on, it was easy to see it as a drop in confidence - I didn't really 'get' it and I think it was a a sign that I was further behind than I expected to be - I am a confidence player, both on and off the pitch and if it's not there, I don't feel like I'm doing things in the right way.

Now, I’m starting to see it differently - it’s not a loss of confidence in the way I first thought - I just feel like it’s the absence of history now, the lack of experience in an alien industry because you don't really get it but history takes time to build.

You can’t shortcut that.

You can only live through it.

// The Invitation

I don’t think this is something that needs resolving quickly if anything, trying to force confidence and a certainty too early probably does more harm than good because you lack humility.

There’s something valuable in allowing that in-between space to exist without immediately trying to close it - a place where your sense of self isn’t quite as it once was - where you don't feel like 'you'

I don't think it's because you’re moving in the wrong direction but because you’re still building the context that makes everything feel steady again - you're gaining that history to get to a place where you've got the knowledge of the beat so that you know how the song ends as soon as it starts.