A self-sufficient introvert?

I often sit in silence during car journeys.
Every now and then I listen to podcasts, usually about tech.

This time, a random video popped up and it actually clicked straight away.
No new information, just a sense of recognition.

It was as if it were about me.

Over the past few years, I’ve had more time to think than I’d ever planned.
An explanation in The Psychology of a Self-Sufficient Introvert shed some light on it, and suddenly everything fell into place.

A lot has happened in my life over the past few years.
My health, my family, and, as a result, periods spent at home.

First comes recovery, then it becomes an obligation, and later there is another period of recovery.
And after that recovery comes what is perhaps the hardest part: finding a new balance in what your life will look like.

Once that balance is achieved, a sense of calm sets in.

People often asked me whether I found it difficult to have to take things at a more leisurely pace.
But for me, that peace and quiet actually felt just right.

And that peace and quiet didn’t mean sitting around, going for walks or fishing just to pass the time.
On the contrary.

I actually started to tackle things within my field with greater vigour.
It felt as though there was more scope.

I wanted to take on more challenges, set up more projects, learn more and, above all, explore topics relevant to the business world in greater depth.

To me, the silence didn’t feel empty, but rather complete.

I can work productively for hours without needing anyone else.

Do I work best on my own?

I’m not the sort of person who shuts people out.
Quite the opposite.

For an average IT professional, I’m quite sociable.
I’m good at chatting to colleagues and fellow professionals.

I’m very good at putting myself in a client’s shoes, which enables me to identify problems clearly and pinpoint them accurately.
This also comes into play in the areas of sales and consultancy.

I also enjoy working with others.
I enjoy sharing my ideas and knowledge.

I enjoy it when my systems and ideas are taken up by others and actually add value.

I often find myself thinking back to a comment made by a former employer, Tom Mulder.

After I’d sorted out a rather major, annoying glitch, he said:
“They don’t mess about with you. We’d quite like to see a bit more of you actually caring.”

I understood what he meant.

But I don’t feel that I can resolve a fault any quicker by showing stress or putting on a bit of a show to highlight the seriousness of the situation.

Looking back on it, I think it might have felt to him as though he were sitting next to me as a rally co-driver,
whilst I was navigating my way through a complex situation at high speed.

At moments like that, I’m completely in control.

I’m not showing any signs of panic, but in my head everything’s racing.

I’m running through all the parts of the network at lightning speed.
I think in terms of a packet travelling from point A to point B:

What’s going on?
What am I dependent on?
What if this fails?

That’s what I’m focusing on.

I see the same thing with ideas that keep evolving and systems that take shape in my mind.
Connections emerge naturally.

Implementation

What I realised wasn’t that I work better on my own, but that I work differently.

I need space to get to the bottom of things.
To build systems in my head first before I share them with others.

And to ensure that the systems we build do not rely on a single person.

For me, collaboration works best when the foundations are right.

I think it’s important that people take ownership.
That knowledge is shared and documented.

I’ve learnt a thing or two from that myself.

I’ve made myself indispensable more than once in the past:
knowing everything, solving everything, always being the one to take charge.

It works fine, until it stops working.

Because being indispensable means:
always being on duty,
always being available,
and ultimately having no peace or space left.

I’ve started to see things differently.

Not: ‘How does everything run through me?’
But: ‘How do I ensure that things keep running without me?’

Ideally, even self-healing.

I do this by documenting things thoroughly, sharing knowledge and setting up systems in such a way that others can build on them.
With clear pipelines that automate provisioning.

That works better.

Because it’s scalable.
Because systems consist of code and versioning.

AI

And that’s exactly where I’m now realising that AI is starting to play a role.

At first, I was sceptical.
I even saw it as a threat for a moment.

But I’ve now incorporated it into my daily workflow.

Thanks to AI, I can flesh out the ideas in my head more quickly.
I can put together large sections of configuration, scripts and concepts more quickly.

Whereas things used to get bogged down in the planning stage, I can now move on much more quickly.

Above all, it saves me time on peripheral matters that aren’t even important at this early stage.

Because that’s where the shaping really begins.

This allows me to test ideas straight away, set up structures more quickly
and move from concept to a working solution more quickly.

For someone who spends a lot of time thinking things through, that makes a huge difference.

The barrier to building something has become much lower.

I also have a robust infrastructure of my own, which means I can deploy virtually anything straight away, exactly as I want it.
An environment that in many ways resembles an enterprise setup, including Kubernetes and a full CI/CD workflow.

Change?

For me, this is the biggest change.

It’s not that I’ve changed all that much,
but I now understand how I work.

And that I can adapt my way of working accordingly, and also explain why I sometimes react the way I do.

I enjoy working with others.
I share my knowledge.

But I work best in an environment where there is scope for focus,
where I can help build structure,
where there is a sense of ownership
and where trust is placed in me.

For me, it’s not about being indispensable,
but about working together to build something that keeps running even when someone isn’t there for a while.

That’s when it all clicked for me.

Nothing needs to change.

I just needed to understand myself better.

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