#36 The step most people skip

Something I keep coming back to with my Amazon clients:

If you were at Amazon for any real length of time, chances are you're an achiever. Maybe you showed up that way. Maybe the environment trained it into you.

Either way, you're wired to spot the next problem, fix it, and move on. That muscle got strong — and it served you well.

It also makes transitions harder than they need to be.

Because the moment you decide to leave — or the moment the decision gets made for you — that same muscle fires. OK, what's next? Let's build a resume.

Let's start networking. Let's get moving.

And you skip the step.

The step is coming back to yourself. Not in a four-day silent meditation retreat kind of way. In a “what do I actually want the tenor of my life to feel like?” way.

What kind of work makes me feel like me? What do I want to carry from Amazon into my next thing — and what do I want to leave behind? What does success actually look like now that I get to define it myself?

Most of my clients haven’t asked themselves these questions in years. Maybe ever. Because Amazon defined success for them — the LPs, the last thing you delivered, your scope, your comp. You didn’t have to figure out what mattered because the system told you where you fit and what achievements were ‘worthy’.

And then the system goes away and you’re sprinting toward the next thing without knowing what you’re actually running toward.

I can usually tell when someone isn’t done with this work yet. It’s not that they can’t talk about what they want — it’s that everything they describe sounds like a reaction to what they had, not a choice about what’s next. “I want less bureaucracy.” “I want a team that actually cares.” “I want to be valued.”

Those are all valid. But they’re away-from statements, not toward statements.

And a search built on away-from energy tends to land you somewhere that’s just... not-Amazon. Which is different from landing somewhere that’s right.

The unsexy move is to slow down before you speed up. Sit with the questions for a minute. Let yourself not have the answer yet. Interrupt the circuitry that says “if I’m not moving, I’m falling behind.”

Catching up with yourself and who you are now isn’t falling behind.

One thing to try this week: write down three things about your last role that you actually want to take with you. Not the title or the scope — the conditions. The way you worked. The kind of problem. The thing that made a random Tuesday feel good.

That list is the start of something useful.

Chat soon,

Mel