A few months ago, I wouldn't have picked myself

Back in February, a friend asked me to join his hackathon team.

My first reaction wasn't excitement.

It was:

"Can I even contribute anything?"

I remember repeatedly telling him not to add dead weight to the team and to find someone better. He kept insisting that it didn't matter and that I should just join.

The funny thing is, I still don't think I've done anything extraordinary since then.

No big startup.

No crazy achievement.

No overnight success story.

Mostly just hundreds of hours of learning, building random things, breaking them, fixing them, and realizing how much I still don't know.

But today I caught myself doing something weird.

I'm the one thinking about who to bring into a team.

And for the first time, I don't immediately feel like I'd be dead weight.

Not because I know everything now.

Just because I've reached the point where I can look at a problem and genuinely believe that, given enough time, I'll figure out how to contribute.

It's a small shift, but it feels important.

A few months ago I was wondering if I belonged on a team at all.

Today I'm wondering who should be on mine. 👀