(2021-11-06) Yien Finding Your Swagger

Kevin Yien: Finding Your Swagger. What is swagger? For me, it's knowing what you're good at and acting accordingly — earned confidence. But it's not arrogance. Your behavior and ability are in lock step.

When you lose your swagger, you lose your self. When you lose your self, you need to spend time alone. When you spend time alone, you are left with nothing but yourself. And only from there can you find yourself, and your swagger, again.

I joined a fast growing startup in 2015.

I had a surge of responsibility and attention. The Content team started (temporarily) reporting to me. I was presenting at the weekly all hands. And I was invited to the executive leadership meetings.

During the first meeting I attended, the CEO asked for my opinion in the middle of a debate. He liked it, and pointed to my answer as an exemplar of critical thinking. It felt good. But little did I know it put a target on my back. The direction I was nudging the company did not align with others.

I stopped being invited to those meetings. Instead I would be told the outcome and what to do as a result of them. As a product manager, I didn't see it as my place to question those decisions (even if I disagreed with them). So I went along.

This was the first step in losing my swagger. I lost the ability to question a decision. I let my title, rather than my beliefs, dictate my actions.

wrote a lengthy email to the CEO laying out my thoughts on the situation. He called me that evening at my personal number and asked why the hell I didn't say something earlier. I described how I was feeling (left out) and he cut right to the core of it. You lost yourself. What happened to the Kevin I hired?

All of a sudden, I started spending a lot of time with the COO. He told me he wanted to get more involved with product. I thought it was great. Then one day, I stayed late to whiteboard some new features with him.

The next day I got to the office early because I was so energized from that interaction. I went to put my stuff down at my desk, and the COO called me into his office. I walked in with a big smile on my face. He cut straight to the point. Kevin, effective immediately, you are no longer an employee at this company.

came down to writing...a lot

Start pushing. Live into that dream. Be the one that gets people excited. Be the one that can give the feedback that needs to be given, no matter who they are in the company. Be the one that aligns the company. Be the one that thinks more strategically than anyone else in the company, regardless of titles — they aren't important. Be the one that the company knows in its bones is responsible for the direction of the company. Be the navigation system for the company. The CEO sets the destination. You get the company there. You plan a route and know the next two directions by memory. You are reassessing the plan every minute to see if you need to re-route.