Self-sufficient introvert?

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

This time, a random clip came along and it actually clicked immediately.
No new information, but recognition.

Like it was about me.

Over the past few years, I have had more time to reflect than I ever planned.
An explanation in The psychology of a self-sufficient introvert shed light on it and suddenly everything fell into place.

A lot has happened in my life in recent years.
My health, my family, and therefore periods of being at home.

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

When that balance is then there, peace is created.

I was often asked if I didn't find it hard to have to slow down.
But for me, that calmness felt just right.

And that rest did not mean sitting still, walking or fishing to fill the time.
On the contrary.

Instead, I went harder on things within my field.
It felt like there was more room.

I wanted to be more entrepreneurial, set up more, learn more and, above all, go deeper into topics relevant in business.

For me, the silence did not feel empty but rather complete.

I can spend hours being productive without needing anyone.

Do I work best alone?

I am not someone who closes off from people.
On the contrary.

For an average ICT person, I am quite communicative.
I can talk well with colleagues and peers.

I am good at putting myself in a customer's shoes, which allows me to focus on problems and crystallise them well.
This is also reflected in the field of sales and consulting.

In addition, I enjoy working together.
I like to share my ideas and knowledge.

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

I am often reminded of a comment made by a former employer, Tom Mulder.

After I fixed a rather large, annoying breakdown, he said:
"They don't make you lukewarm. We'd like to see a bit more that you care."

I understood what he meant.

But to my mind, I don't resolve a breakdown any faster by showing stress or performing some kind of theatre to show the seriousness of the situation.

Looking back on it, I think it may have felt to him like he was sitting next to me as a rally navigator,
while I was going through a complex situation at high speed.

At such a time, I am completely in control.

Not visibly panicking, but in my head everything is running at full speed.

I run through all the components of the network at lightning speed.
I think in the form of a packet going from point A to point B:

What does it pass?
What do I depend on?
What if this fails?

That's my focus.

I see the same with ideas that continue to develop and systems that form in my head.
Connections arise naturally.

Realisation

What I realised is not that I work better alone, but that I work differently.

I need space to think things through.
To build systems in my head first before I bring them out.

And to ensure that systems we build are not dependent on one person.

Collaboration works best for me when the basics are right.

I think it is important that ownership is taken.
That knowledge is shared and recorded.

I learned my lessons in that myself.

I have made myself indispensable more than once in the past:
knowing everything, solving everything, always being the one to pick it up.

That goes well until it stops working.

Because being indispensable means:
always being on,
always being available,
and eventually running out of peace and space.

I started looking at that differently.

Not: how does everything run through me?
But: how do I keep it running without me?

Preferably even self-healing.

I do this by documenting well, sharing knowledge and setting up systems in such a way that others can proceed with them.
With clear pipelines that automate provisioning.

That works better.

Because it is scalable.
Because systems exist in code and versioning.

AI

And that is exactly where I notice AI starting to play a role.

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

But I have since incorporated it into my daily workflow.

Thanks to AI, I can develop ideas that are in my head faster.
I can put down big pieces of configuration, scripts and concepts faster.

Where things used to get stuck in working out, I can now shift gears much faster.

It mainly saves me time in peripheral matters that are not even important in the early stages.

Because that is only where the shaping begins.

This allows me to test ideas directly, set up structures faster
and go from concept to something working faster.

For someone who is in his head a lot and likes to think things out, that makes a huge difference.

The threshold to build something has become much lower.

I also have a solid infrastructure in place myself, allowing me to deploy almost everything directly as I want.
An environment that resembles an enterprise setup in many ways, including Kubernetes and a full CI/CD workflow.

Change?

For me, this is the biggest change.

Not that I have become very different,
but that I now understand how I work.

And that I can adjust my modus operandi accordingly, and also explain why I sometimes react the way I react.

I like to collaborate.
I share my knowledge.

But I function best in an environment where there is room for focus,
where I can help build structure,
where there is ownership
and where trust is given.

For me, it's not about being indispensable,
but about building something together that continues to function even when someone is not there.

That's what fell into place for me.

Nothing needs to change.

I just needed to understand myself better.

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