Adaptability isn’t a personality trait. It’s a skill you practice, often by putting yourself in situations where you have no choice.

Solo travel as training

In my early to mid twenties, I loved solo traveling. It was also insanely lonely and nerve-racking. Constant low-grade anxiety. My trips had almost no structure. I’d know where I was going and where I was staying. That’s it. No itinerary, no grander plan beyond the city and a place to sleep.

It sounds strange, but this builds character. You’re forced to be uncomfortable, and then you learn to be comfortable with it. You also learn to optimize the process of getting comfortable. I hate the act of traveling even though I like travel. So I’ve learned: carry-on only, aisle seat (bathroom access, faster exit), Airbnb over hotels. If you’re a millennial or Gen Z, you really shouldn’t be booking hotels in most places. Not worth the cost, and you end up stuck in tourist traps.

The San Diego decision

I’d gotten so used to challenging myself that comfort started feeling uncomfortable. I remember sitting in Athens, contemplating what I was going back to. Morrisville, North Carolina. Suburbs. Families. Not much happening.

I thought: I need to change.

I’d never been to California. Didn’t know anyone in San Diego. But something about it stuck. I found one apartment online, flew out to look at it, and signed the lease. Some would call that stupid. I’d agree with them. It worked out.

I told myself I’d stay one year. I stayed almost three. I didn’t want to leave. Then I got a job in San Francisco that required hybrid, which meant relocating.

Refusing to pre-judge

It took real willpower to reframe my thinking. I’d unexpectedly fallen in love with San Diego, and now I had to leave. You hear things about San Francisco. I remember telling myself: I refuse to move to a city having already decided what my experience will be.

The first weekend of apartment shopping was truly horrific. But San Francisco isn’t a bad city. It’s just different. San Diego is sprawling, the weather is excellent, life is tame. San Francisco is bustling, hectic, more varied architecture, more in-city activities, less sporty.

If I hadn’t developed this ability to be comfortable with discomfort, I would have been miserable in San Diego. Even more miserable in San Francisco. Instead, both became places I genuinely enjoyed.

The professional parallel

The same principle applies at work. Fivetran and dbt Labs merged. But it wasn’t just two players combining. It was the biggest move in a wave of consolidations. Fivetran had acquired a dbt Labs competitor. dbt Labs had acquired SDF Labs, a smaller player in its own space. Suddenly the competitive landscape shifted for everyone in the industry, including us at Airbyte. Roadmaps get wrecked by things like this.

External events happen and you have no choice but to adapt. You can grudgingly adapt, forced by circumstances to suck it up. Or you can say: it’s not perfect, it’s not what I expected, but let’s open this door and see what’s there.

It’s a difficult mentality to maintain. But it’s something you have to keep reminding yourself to have.

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