Nothing Is Wasted
Pictured in front of a gorgeous wall mural in Cambridge, MA.
On my first job out of undergrad, as an assistant editor, my manager used to joke: “Damilola’s inbox is where good ideas go to die”. Ouch. He wasn’t lying though; I generated and received many brilliant ideas, but 90% fell flat when it came to getting them done. I would overthink things, feel overwhelmed, and do nothing. We know what that’s called, but I’ll avoid the cliche. I simply didn’t know how to execute.
Ten and a few odd years later, I’ve been honored to learn and grow at some of the world’s biggest and best companies, and I’ve learned the language of execution. Somehow, over the past few years, I became a poster child for executing very hard things; the one my managers sent peers to to “ask how she did it”. It is crazy to see how far I’ve come, because most of the time I still feel like that fresh-from-undergrad girl from 10+ years ago whose ideas were rendered useless thanks to anxiety.
The past six years as a product manager, especially, have taught me secrets that once felt out of reach. I can now craft a compelling vision for any new idea in my sleep, force answers to both the dazzling and challenging ‘whats’ and ‘whys’ and ‘hows’; state my knowns and unknowns honestly. I can find the right stakeholders and delegate on aspects in which I am not the expert; I can design A/B tests with a clear hypothesis, derisking even the hardest of tasks. The secrets didn’t come easy. I stumbled, fell, got up, and kept moving.
I know a day will come when I no longer call myself a product manager. On some days, my only achievement is to sit still and will that day into existence. It is now clear that I will draw on many hard-earned lessons from my time in the trenches. Maybe execution will even become a superpower. Today, though, I am happy to sit with joy and perspective. My inbox is bubbling over with stems and leaves; growth creeps out of conversations and notes and meetings, reminding me that in the economy of Light, every experience eventually reveals its usefulness.
