Freedom

I recently started a new job. I left my old job primarily because I had lost faith in the leadership and I didn't sense there was adequate growth potential without going and working on a project that I am not at all interested in working on.

My new job is a more senior position even though my previous job was a "senior" position as well. The thing that I love the most about my job, so far, is the freedom I have. There isn't anyone standing in my way except me, myself, and I. There is something huge about this for me, no excuses other than my own incompetence, which somehow challenges me more.

The other thing that motivates me about my new position is the relevancy of my success. The project I am in charge of designing has a very large and important end goal. It is also very challenging and many are speculating we will not succeed. So part of my challenge is to manage expectations while keeping a positive outlook. The "mojo" of a project is everything I have learned.

My old boss was excellent at managing the higher-ups; the one that just left the project; the one who actually sought after me to hire me. I am certainly going to miss him. He has been a friend and leader for me to learn from for many years, but, it adds to my freedom level to some extent. He is really the only other person I currently know who I feel like can add value to what we are doing, but at the end of the day I was hired to figure out the solution. With him gone I will design and create this new system primarily. How fun!

Freedom is even bigger for me than I would have anticipated even 1 year ago. Strap on your seat belt, we are going for a ride and I'm driving. The appropriate question is, "Do the police know you [I] are driving?". More on that one later ...