Here’s something I hold philosophical, you can show up for your team, crush your tasks, and ship solid work and build something that’s entirely yours at the same time. These aren’t competing goals. They’re the same goal.
Your company with your contribution is building it's future every day. But here’s the thing, you need to be building yours too. The job can change overnight. Companies restructure. Teams split. You get a new manager who doesn’t get what you’re doing. Budgets get slashed. These aren’t catastrophes, they’re just how work happens. But if the only thing you’ve built is for the company, you’re starting from zero when the winds shift.
So why not build something that travels with you?
A skill that travels with you when the job doesn’t. Something you picked up on the side, in a project that didn’t have a budget or a deadline or stakeholders asking for status updates. That skill sticks with you forever. A public thing with your name on it. A blog. A GitHub project. Something that shows what you can do, without needing to ask permission or wait for an opportunity. It opens doors just by existing. A small income stream, even just pocket money. Freelance work, a side gig, whatever. It doesn’t have to be huge. What matters is that you know you can make money without your current job. That changes how you think about everything — suddenly you’re choosing to be there, not trapped.
The best people I’ve worked with were the ones who were building something on the side for something they believed should exist, they are so driven by it because they know it's upto them to make it work. They showed up sharper with intent. They had better judgment about what matters. They didn’t waste time on ticking boxes or fumbling tasks. They just knew how to get things done because they’d been doing it for real, on their own dime.
Your team needs people like that. And you need to be that person.