I was one of those people who felt the need to complete every task. If I had a drink in my hand, it was my mission to finish it. If there was a task on my dashboard, best believe it would be cleared by the end of the week. If someone requested a call, I could get to it by the very next day. If someone needed urgent help, I could help them complete what they needed in the next few hours. 

I was the backup person in my team. I absolutely loved it. I felt a sense of achievement and validation when I got to guide people through their tasks, when I was asked for my perspective, and when I was picked to work on the most challenging projects. I got to fully use my skills, my creativity, and break my previous benchmarks. 

I gave it my absolute everything, every single day. It was also what killed me. 

The company that I worked at ran incubators and innovation consultancy projects. It was a company with a mission to support early-stage, local entrepreneurs. I resonated with the mission a lot. I found the projects exciting and the people that I worked with extremely passionate. It allowed me to be creative and push the boundaries of creating my best work in the most limited amount of time. Sometimes I had less than 24 hours to deliver something completely new. It was stressful, and equally exhilarating. 

It was not sustainable. Everyone’s work capacity was stretched to the limit. People could barely take breaks and holidays. When people did take time off, the workload was very heavy on those who were there. The work culture and expectations broke people. The company took a hit during the pandemic, and ultimately, it went out of business. 

It was a confusing time for me, and I believe for many others as well. We truly believed in the mission and what we were contributing to. As the company no longer exists, I felt angry that there was nothing to show for my hard work, my tears, and my turmoil. 

I didn’t want to talk about or reference the company that was dead. And I thought it reflected badly on me that I bet on a losing horse.

Does having nothing tangible to show for my efforts mean those years were wasted? Was I pathetic for feeling so emotionally connected to the company and the mission that I overstayed and didn’t look at the situation objectively?

With the loss of the company, I also lost my compass. I was despaired, having to repair my fragmented understanding of who I am, what I believed in, and what I should invest my time in. What was next for me? How do I make sense of that whole experience? The company was no longer there. What can I use to show that the experience even happened? 

I knew I had grown as a person. But I felt like I was the only one who saw myself in that different way. 

Others I talked to wanted to dig into why I stayed around, what actually happened, and the leadership that led the company into the ground. So that kept making me feel worse because I wanted to move past that and focus on how I had changed as a person and the skills I had gained, regardless of what had happened with the company. 

The growth I had felt “invisible” because I was so used to assessing outcomes. But my resilience, skills, and perspective had developed so much that I don’t think I can relate to my former self that first joined the company. 

I was really quiet when I first joined, trying to pick up the etiquette and culture of working in Thailand from people around me, as I had only previously worked in the UK. At the end of my time there, I was comfortable speaking up, expressing what was on my mind, and I guided a few people around me as they joined the company with it being their first job ever. It was a full-cycle moment. And with framing my experience in that way, I came to terms with my experience at the company. It had given me what I needed and I had outgrown it. Regardless of whether it would survive or not, I had to move on to my next phase in order to continue my growth. Overstaying would stall my growth. 

The company was the perfect playground for me to grow my confidence to deliver projects in crazy timelines, managing internal and external project members. I even dabbled in some software projects, product management, doing creative roles or marketing execution. I got to experiment and find my areas of interest.

I got to explore, deepen, and express my perspective. That’s what I had to show for it. 

I learned that being a hero is really not what it seems. Ironman was my favorite, and he died at the end, saving everyone else. That was probably what I was trying to emulate but I couldn’t distinguish that it was simply a sinking ship and we should have all found a different ship to jump to or planned for everyone’s “safe” leave from the boat.