Walking Away From Success
Putting in my notice to leave GoDaddy was the toughest decision of my 13-year career. I wasn’t leaving because of a lack of opportunities. Something inside me broke. This bled into my personal life, ruining my sleep and shortening my fuse with the kids.
GoDaddy is an incredible place to work and has invested so much in my career growth. When I joined GoDaddy, I was a “manager” in title only, with no direct reports and minimal impact. In a more consultative role, I helped multiple teams design and analyze experiments.
I took an exciting role in the engineering org. I spent five years building a statistical engine as part of a company-wide decision-making platform, growing the team to six people, and developing an AI/ML charter.
Despite the external success, something was wrong internally. I realized I wasn’t excited about the work anymore; I was anxious about it. I had stopped playing to win and started playing ‘not to lose.’ I couldn’t articulate it at the time, but I needed a hard reset to understand why, and an extended vacation wouldn’t be enough.
From Hungry to Fearful
In the early stages of adulthood, I was obsessed with learning.
In high school, I was determined to optimize a paycheck I didn’t even have yet. I spent 30 minutes every night reading personal finance books. Reading these dense books wasn’t for a grade. It was so I could be smarter with my money than most 40-year-olds by the time I turned 20.
In college, I needed more to bolster my statistics degree as I entered the workforce. By graduation, I had mastered R, SAS, and SQL.
Even early in my career in mobile gaming, I was the guy bothering managers to take on more complicated projects. I wanted the complex puzzles, like solving the “useful life” problem at GLU that was stumping other analysts. I wasn’t afraid of not knowing the answer. I was excited to find it.
The Growth Mindset carried me into my early days at GoDaddy. I took on the daunting task of building a statistical engine despite not having a single engineering bone in my body. I had to learn how to code in Python and navigate AWS on the fly. It was a scramble, but I didn’t care that I looked like a beginner because I was learning at an exponential pace.
But somewhere along the way, the script flipped.
I developed a Fixed Mindset. Fear of being wrong replaced my hunger to learn. I fell into the “Expert Trap.” I had to prove my worth constantly.
This shift took a physical toll. I started having sleepless nights. I would jolt awake after only three hours of rest, paralyzed by the problems and meetings awaiting me the next day. My heart raced at the possibility of receiving negative feedback.
The explosive rise of AI didn’t feel like the exciting opportunity it would have been for “College Me.” It felt like a threat. I was terrified of falling behind, yet frozen by the fear of failure, unable to start learning again. The AI frenzy was a continuous cycle of anxiety.
Reclaiming My Body and Mind
Leaving GoDaddy forced me to confront my anxious patterns. I realized I complained constantly. I complained at work and brought that negativity home, complaining about the political climate. I needed to break the cycle, so I started with the physiology.
I turned my attention to my physical health first. I went to the gym every day to stretch, lift weights, and do cardio. My body felt achy because I had neglected it for so long. To fix this, I added daily yoga to my routine to improve my flexibility. I even took up gardening as a form of physical meditation. I installed five raised beds in my backyard to grow fruits and vegetables. (I plan to write a blog post about this experience later.)
Physical activity helped, but it did not solve the root problem. I still felt anxious. I opened up to my wife about my mental state, and we identified a significant trigger. My phone was the problem. I decided right then to uninstall all social media apps.
As a tech professional, I understand how these platforms operate. Engineers design the algorithms to be addictive. They incite emotions from happiness to anger to keep them engaged. I realized my anger was at an all-time high because I fed it every time I opened an app.
Uninstalling these apps drastically improved my mental state. I stopped doom-scrolling through YouTube Shorts. My attention span recovered immediately. I actually enjoy boredom now. I can sit and read without distractions. Reading is much more enjoyable, and my pace improved by 50%.
These actions supported my journey back to a growth mindset. Yoga and gardening were new skills to learn. Gardening specifically taught me how to learn from failure. I lost plants and made mistakes. Removing that social media noise allowed me to focus on my personal growth and embrace the awkwardness of being a beginner.
Parenting the Growth Mindset
My wife’s career growth enabled me to pause my career and take over the day-to-day responsibilities. I viewed this as a new challenge rather than a list of chores. I applied a growth mindset to domestic life. I learned to build efficient daily and weekly cleaning schedules to keep our home organized. I treated household management as a new skill to master.
Spending more time with my kids made me realize how they approach learning differently. My son loves homework. My daughter loathes homework and fears being incorrect. She shows signs of the “Expert Trap” I just escaped. I turn their focus towards the growth mindset every day to combat this. I read quotes from the book Mindset during breakfast. We talk about the qualities of a good student. I consistently remind them that getting answers wrong or misreading words is a learning opportunity. I want them to understand that intelligence comes from learning and effort.
Ready to Relaunch with a Growth Mindset
Looking back on my final years at GoDaddy, I realized something important. My team and peers continued to grow and succeed, but I had stopped. I found myself coasting on old accomplishments instead of pushing forward.
Now I am ready to return to the workforce. Things will be different this time. I plan to take this hunger for learning back to the office. I want to expand my technical abilities and improve my management style. I know that professional growth stops when you settle for the status quo.
This break also taught me that the technology landscape changes too fast to stand still. Resting on past expertise is a trap. I must keep evolving to stay relevant. The ability to learn continuously is the only skill that really matters.
I am happy to be a beginner again.