I’ve been thinking a lot recently about personal growth and, in the process, realized something important: there have always been periods in my career where I wasn’t growing. Sometimes I understood it too late. Other times, the lack of growth resulted in stagnation that ultimately harmed my team, my family, and the business.

I talked in the past about the two metrics that quietly drive a huge portion of our professional outcomes: TTA (Time to Awareness) and TTR (Time to Resolution).

It has been five years since I joined Grafana Labs. In my entire career, I have never worked at any company for this long. This is a new situation for me. Turns out, you can stay in the same company, with the same people, for years and still feel fulfillment, joy, and growth.

I recently had a conversation about performance and promotions. The person I was speaking with shared feedback they had received: they needed to work on a project with “high business impact” to get to the next level. I am a manager. I have given this feedback myself. Many, many times.

I’ve been thinking a lot about solitude at work, not in a philosophical sense, but in a very real, everyday way. The thought first came up because of my 7 year old son. He’s an introvert, the textbook kind. He enjoys learning on his own, prefers silence to noise, and doesn’t rush to speak in groups.