Spring typically marks rebirth and renewal. New Year’s resolutions are either in full swing or are long abandoned, and bonuses from the previous year have been paid out. It’s a time where many of us are feeling re-energized, and we’re feeling our oats. Sometimes, this can cause us to re-evaluate our jobs.

If we’ve built a good reputation for ourselves, or we happen to work at a hot company gaining a lot of attention, we become the target of many recruiters looking to steal talent away for the “next great thing”. These calls can come with promises of bigger titles, more money, and a faster career trajectory. It’s hard not to have our egos fed a little with this much attention. Career aspirations and progression is a normal, healthy thing. However, before you fall prey to believing the “grass is greener” at a new opportunity, stop and consider the following.

HOW GREEN IS YOUR CURRENT GRASS?

We are human. It’s crazy for us not to consider what the grass looks like on the other side of the fence. Maybe our current lawn is fine, but if we pick our heads up to explore a new lawn, we might start noticing crabgrass or bare spots on our turf that we hadn’t seen before. The question is, what is causing you to pick up that phone call in the first place? Has the perception of your current situation changed because you aren’t feeling the love from your current company, indicating perhaps it is time to contemplate a change? Or maybe everything is going well, and your needs are being met, but the promise of something new and different is giving you pause.

Are you considering a change? Take a moment to consider the following to determine if the grass is truly greener somewhere else.

• Every lawn has some imperfections - Even the most celebrated golf courses have problem areas. The important factor is to recognize if the grounds crew actively tends to it. In other words, no company is perfect. However, if your organization and leadership actively acknowledge the challenge areas and move quickly to address them, the company is likely quite healthy.  

• Every lawn needs to be maintained - Keeping a green lawn takes a whole lot of effort.  A company needs to be financially and organizationally healthy, but we play a role in this process as well. We each need to take accountability to stay intellectually curious, to make an impact, and to be an additive cultural citizen. Sometimes, it’s easier to walk away and take on the next best thing (e.g. “Hey, they are offering me a bigger role! I don’t have to do the work at my current company to get there!”).  Be wary, however. Do the work and ask the questions to understand why you currently are where you are at work, and make the necessary tweaks to ensure you are on the trajectory you want to be on. In some cases, you and your current company may be misaligned, and looking elsewhere might be completely warranted. In other cases, however, when a new role looks like a quick win somewhere else, proceed with caution. Often times, when something seems a too good to be true, it probably is.

• Every lawn is as green as you make it - We are all in control of our own destiny. If you have worked hard to maintain your current lawn in your organization and just don’t feel like you are reaping the benefits, perhaps it is time to go. However, take a good hard look at what’s involved in changing yards. Don’t be swayed by the perception of greener grass; understand what’s involved in the maintenance, what your role will be in keeping it green, etc. You just might find your current situation can be made even better with a few changes in approach.

No company expects you to stay there for your entire career, but the good ones will work hard to aid you in creating a great experience that will keep you growing, learning and thriving for a sustained period of time. Before you decide to hop the fence onto what appears to be a more lush, green lawn, take the time to really understand if it is truly better... or if your lawn, even with a few random dandelions, is pretty terrific.

This article was written with VentureFizz Staff Writer Colin Barry.

Picture this: It’s the early-60s in a meeting for one of MIT’s student-ran organizations—the Tech Model Railroad Club. There’s a group of students hunched over a large, white box-like structure that features a bright screen and game with rather primitive graphics. It appears to be two spaceships going at it—not unlike the dogfights seen in Star Wars, but on a much, much smaller scale. Those students were playing a game programmed by Steve Russell, a member of the club and lifelong computer enthusiast.

This is Spacewar!, the first digital video game, and to many video game/technology historians out there, the first true video game.

And to think, it all started here in Boston.

Aside from being a birthplace for the medium, video games and the Boston area are kind of like peanut butter and jelly—their fates are tied to each other. And since then, there has been a neverending influx of video game developers and publishers into the area.

“One reason [Boston’s success building its video game scene] is that Boston can claim a share of the birthright, with games coming from MIT,” said Massachusetts Digital Games Institute (Mass DiGI) Founder and Executive Director Timothy Loew, referring back to Spacewar!. “It’s something folks from our neck of the woods have been involved with from the get-go. More importantly, I think it’s our academic and cultural institutions that help make for great game development.”

Loew isn’t just talking about game development today, either.

For example, the now-defunct Looking Glass Studios was originally based in Lexington and Cambridge (made up of a significant number of MIT graduates), and was responsible for some extremely significant games, including System Shock and Thief. Other examples of significant locally-developed games include Guitar Hero & Rock Band (Harmonix), BioShock (2K Boston, now Ghost Story Games), Zork (Infocom), Zoo Tycoon (Blue Fang Games), and many others.

“There’s been a lot of stalwarts in the industry and games are a bit of a spikey one, but those veterans have seen them all,” Loew said. “Without Looking Glass, what would our local game industry look like, but more importantly, what would the game industry look like globally?”

“Video games, as a medium and as an industry, has never stayed still. In Boston, we started out with Infocom, later on Looking Glass and then Irrational, and now we're getting a mix of things. It's not atypical for companies to go in and out of business,” said Ichiro Lambe, a 25-year industry veteran who is both Founder and President of independent game studio Dejobaan Games.

Many video game studios (like Blue Fang Games, Infocom, and Looking Glass Studios) no longer exist, and others (like Ghost Story Games) are now vastly different from the companies they used to be. As lifelong fans of the medium, fellow VentureFizz Staff Writer Colin Barry and I have been thinking about doing a deep dive on this industry for quite some time. What kind of studios exist in our backyard? And moreover, how does the game dev scene here compare to where it used to be? Those are the questions we aim to answer.

Throughout our research and interviews, we spoke to a number of local developers and community leaders, and we found two attributes that define the game dev scene as it exists today: the rise of independent developers and the community that connects all of them.

Press Start... to go Independent

There are many, many people developing video games in the Greater Boston area today. While there are certainly a number of large companies with a presence in Massachusetts, they are often smaller subsidiaries (like Rockstar New England, SEGA’s Demiurge Studios, and Warner Bros’ Turbine), and a number of the once-giant studios are operating at a smaller scale than they were some years ago. The lion’s share of developers, now more than ever, are the independent ones.

Some studios are one person striking out on their own, some are working with small teams from one of the area’s many universities, and many are fully-staffed companies—some of which have been developing games as long as I’ve been alive. One potential explanation for the rise of indie studios might be the ever-increasing access to development tools, which allow companies to make great products with a smaller team.

“There's been a huge democratization of technology for people to get involved, so companies like mine don't necessarily need an entire engine team to deal with developing products,” Zapdot Founder Michael Carriere said. “You can use tools like Unity and Unreal to be able to quickly develop really high-quality games with a smaller group. Because of this, studios now have the ability for smaller teams to be very successful and maintain a consistent stream of work either doing their own projects or working with clients to build interactive experiences.”

Here are just a few of the studios making games in Massachusetts:

Proletariat

“In 2012, we [the Proletariat founding team] were all at Zynga’s Boston studio,” said Proletariat Founder and CEO Seth Sivak. “The five founding members, including myself, had worked together for quite some time, and have always thought about starting a company together.” After Zynga’s Boston studio shut down in October of that year, Sivak and his friends at Zynga were given the opportunity to take the plunge and form their own independent studio.

Since its founding, the company has experienced a surge in talent growth, and in 2015, Proletariat received $6M in a Series A funding round led by Spark Capital.

Sivak also teaches classes at Northeastern for students majoring in game design or are just interested in learning about the topic.

Dejobaan Games

Dejobaan Games was originally founded by Lambe in 1999 when he had just left the first company he Co-Founded, Worlds Apart Productions, two years earlier. “I wanted to strike out on my own and create games that appealed to me,” Lambe said.

That company, Dejobaan Games, originally made games for Palm PDA devices and old computer operating systems before transitioning to making the games they’re better known for today.

Some of their developed games include AaAaAA!!! – A Reckless Disregard for Gravity (I played the mobile version, by the way—it’s great), Monster Loves You!, and Elegy for a Dead World (with Popcannibal Games).

Zapdot

Zapdot is a video game developer that develops games for a variety of clients and circumstances. Founded by Michael Carriere in 2007 when he was 19, Zapdot primarily makes games as a studio-for-hire, shipping games for cultural awareness training, scientific research, converting tabletop games to online digital counterparts, and more traditional games for both established brands and new ones.

“We help bring game development to a wide variety of clients, and that's where we shine. We have a really great team that embraces challenging and ambitious work, which has allowed us to apply our design and development chops to a bunch of different industries.”

They also sponsor local meetups and developer events, and mentor aspiring developers.

Disruptor Beam

Disruptor Beam was founded by longtime developer Jon Radoff in 2010 with the ambitious goal to, as Radoff explained, “bring deep storytelling and immersive game experiences to emerging platforms.” By emerging platforms, Radoff refers to Facebook and mobile devices.

”We knew there was a great opportunity to bring these types of deep game experiences to platforms like Facebook, but also mobile," Radoff said on the founding of the company. "We envisioned the mobile market growing more sophisticated over time and ultimately were excited by the idea that these rapidly evolving smart devices can become a conduit for emotion and storytelling.“

The Framingham-based company has multiple games under their belts, including Star Trek Timelines (Steam, Facebook, iOS, Android), The Walking Dead: March to War (iOS, Android) and Game of Thrones Ascent (Facebook, iOS, Android).

The Deep End Games

The Deep End Games is a Boston-based studio that includes several former Irrational Games employees that worked on the Bioshock series. This past May, they released Perception (PC, Xbox One, PS4, Switch), a crowdfunded first-person horror game about a woman who perceives the world via echolocation. They also just announced their next project, Dark Web, at PAX East 2018.

“Player 2 has joined!” - Collaboration and Community

“If you are in the game industry or looking to break into the game industry, you can pretty much find an event in the Boston area every single week to attend to learn more or connect with others,” Radoff. said “That is definitely a strength—there are numerous platforms for people to engage with and connect with like-minded individuals.”

Just about every person we talked to for this article had something similar to say—that in Boston, there are many ways to connect with others, and that the local industry is nothing if not a big community.

“Compare now to 1999, and then earlier than that, there was nothing for indies back then. There's always been things like Boston Post Mortem, but we have more now than ever. With Boston, everything is hugely vibrant,” Lambe said.

If you are an independent game developer in Boston—or even if you just love video games and maybe want to make one someday—the resources to get involved are nearly bottomless. Here are some of them:

Boston Indies is a community of game developers from Massachusetts (and the surrounding area) that hosts a monthly meetup, done in order “to talk about the art and craft of making video games, and to share our work with each other,” the website says.

Boston Indies is led by Zapdot Founder Michael Carriere, Cybereason Director of Partner Marketing Caroline Murphy and Lead Developer at Subaltern Games Seth Alter.  Carriere explained that he wanted to support community that supported him.

“Boston’s indie game community is one of the main reasons why Zapdot exists today, and why we want to support the local community. When I was at Harmonix, it was so riveting to see everything that was being developed in the area, and that gave me the confidence that I could step up and do this on my own.”

Boston Post Mortem is the Boston chapter of the International Game Developers Association (IGDA). Like Boston Indies, the group meets monthly to network and discuss the artform that is video game development, typically through talks given to attendees. Some of their recent meetups have included “Following The Money: Breaking Down Video Game Costs,” “Tips for Submitting to the FIG Digital Showcase,” and one that Colin and I both saw and very much enjoyed, “Rock Band™ VR – Audio Design Post Mortem.”

The Boston Festival of Indie Games (BostonFIG) is a non-profit that (among other things) organizes a festival every year to celebrate New England’s independent game development. The next festival is going to be on September 22 this year at the MIT Johnson Athletic Center.

The Massachusetts Digital Games Institute (MassDiGI) is a campus-based organization located at Becker College that fosters entrepreneurship, academic cooperation and economic development within the regional game industry. Founded in 2010 by Loew, MassDiGI works with independent developers, established studios, and students across New England and the US. The organization also provides an incubator of sorts for those up-and-coming startups.

The impetus for MassDiGI came out of a conversation at Becker which was ranked one of the top schools for game development in the country (it still ranks near the top, along with MIT, Northeastern, Hampshire, and WPI...all in the state), and he realized there was (and is) an opportunity to build that competency into momentum for the local industry.

And then there’s the Indie Game Collective, which is a somewhat different kind of community…

Located near the Cambridgeside Galleria, the Indie Game Collective represents a group of studios that all work under the same roof, including Zapdot, Dejobaan Games, Popcannibal, and others.

The Cambridge-based coworking space exists to foster a community of collaboration and discussion between studios. Here the various studios talk to each other, solicit feedback, and mentor younger or less-experienced developers.

“It is a group of several game studios that work together, and it serves as an advisor and mentor to the community. We have people in every Friday who come in just to talk to us. Sometimes they ask us questions about their game or their Kickstarter, or students ask us about how to get into the industry—things like that, and we try to increase the knowledge sharing that happens in the community, as well as resource sharing and making sure that everyone is as successful as they can be,” Carriere said.

A number of games have even been co-developed and released by two studios working in the space together. Elegy for a Dead World, for example, is a product of co-development between Dejobaan and Popcannibal. Jack Lumber, meanwhile, was made through collaboration between Zapdot and Owlchemy. And it doesn’t stop there.

Lambe said during our interview that Greater Boston’s game dev scene has an excellent spirit of collaboration, but he added that it could be even greater.

“I think that we could be even more cohesive than we are now. I would love to see even more happening. Boston does engineering and development very well. I would love to see us get to become more collaborative and creative and whimsical, just do weird creative stuff like you see on the West Coast.”

“Insert Credit to Continue” - Changes, and What Does the Future Hold?

Over the course of our journey to learn more about the Boston (and Massachusetts) game development scene, Colin and I concluded that this is an area driven by its smaller independent developers. While you might not see as many behemoth sellers coming out today as you used to, more people are playing (and loving) games than ever before.

Sivak suggested that Boston has, over the years, fallen a bit from its place in the overall industry.

“The best way I can describe Boston is having a thriving indie scene,” Sivak described. “Boston used to be a huge spot, but now it feels a bit lower tier. A lack of a major publisher makes it hard to really break out. It’s up to us to nurture the community and help it grow. However, one of Boston’s strengths is our access to world-class talent, especially in regards to engineering.”

Carriere said that although things are different, the industry is nowhere near dire straits, and may even be better than it ever was in some ways.

“While some of the largest game developers downsized over the past decade, several small and mid-sized studios have sprung up in their wake,” said Carriere, also adding, “The continued stability of these teams, and in many cases growth, points to a healthy economy for the industry in the Greater Boston area.”

No matter whether the Massachusetts game dev scene is in a better or worse place than it used to be, the passion of these developers represents an unstoppable drive to create that we saw in every single developer we talked to. Look no further than Lambe, who caught the creative bug two-and-a-half decades ago and never looked back.

“I wanted to create,” he said. “It was like a burning thirst that couldn’t be quenched.”

Akamai is not only one of the pillar companies in the Boston tech scene, but it is also one of the most prominent companies to come out of the MIT ecosystem.

Akamai was founded in 1998 by MIT graduate student Daniel Lewin and MIT applied mathematics professor Tom Leighton. The company started to gain momentum by entering the MIT $50K competition (now $100K), where they were one of the finalists. A little more than a year later, Akamai went public and its stock saw a first-day bump of 458%.

Akamai faced tragedy as Lewin died during the September 11th attacks. Lewin is remembered as a pioneer during the early days of the Internet.

Today, this anchor company has a market cap of almost $12B and has been very active in terms of making acquisitions throughout the years.

It comes as no surprise that several of their alumni have gone on to start other companies or are part of the leadership team at other major tech companies. Below is a slideshow with many of them.

There is a certain brand of crazy shared among those who flock to startup and hypergrowth companies. Who in their right mind would sign up to truly go “all in” with minimal chance of success? To dominate their thoughts and energies to a mission that is far bigger than themselves? To potentially isolate themselves from friends and family members who might offer surface level support, but often suffer the consequences of caring about someone so driven and committed to their goal?  

My Backstory

I grew up with a father who was a serial entrepreneur, and his workstyle was all I knew of what a career might look like. While it was clear that work was a pretty big focus in his life, he was an engaged dad who was home every night for dinner and never missed a school play or big game. This was balanced with the good fortune of having a mom who stayed at home and managed all of our lives. In my sheltered little world, this structure served as an incredible model for me: you can pursue growing a business AND have a wonderful family life. I didn’t take into account what it would be like to attempt to achieve that with one person playing both roles.

Aside from my high school job scooping ice cream, I’ve only worked in startups and hypergrowth companies.  In my first internship, the company went public about three weeks into my time there, and I was completely smitten. Upon graduation, I joined a consulting firm that was in the process of releasing a bestseller, which aided the company is growing from 100 to 900 people over the course of the next several years.  Young, ambitious, and eager to learn, I took every opportunity to raise my hand and say, “I’ll help!” It paid off. Between getting a masters at night and building perspective and experience in my field every day, I inexplicably felt ready to find my first opportunity to play a leadership role in people strategy a few years later.  I joined an incredible company on the brink of huge greatness, and I connected with a group of twenty-somethings who took the company public a short time later. I think back to that time and am in awe of the energy - and sheer audacity - that all of that took. But we did it together, so everything seemed possible.

I was also in a different place in my life. During the first decade of my career, I had no children.  I did get married, but my husband was as busy building his career, and we bonded over that. By the time I joined my third growth company, I was in the groove with a focused passion for building,  and I was used to getting minimal sleep. That was a good thing, because a month after we launched the company, I found out I was pregnant.

Life Changes Often Require Different Prioritization

I somehow managed to have two children before that company was acquired. I had the great fortune to lay myself off as part of that deal, and take a little time to stay at home with my daughters. While I pride myself on being hands-on as a parent, I quickly realized I wasn’t very good with a singular focus. I quickly filled whatever extra time I had with launching an after-school program, volunteer work, and starting a hand-painted kids furniture business so I could exercise another part of my brain. This seemed to put a Band-Aid on the situation for a while, but it didn’t last. The desire to be part of a team committed to growing something from nothing became too much of a pull. After another stint at trying to keep the balance by consulting with startups, I jumped in again with both feet.

Since having children, I realize I was attempting to become a fused version of both my parents. I had a passion for working with others to achieve that which does not yet exist and tried to balance that with being a hands-on, visible and engaged mom to two daughters.  Like my father, I am home every night for dinner, so I attempt to shut down one part of my life and focus in on the other. Like my mother, I attempt to fill my home with home-cooked meals, memorable holidays, love and laughter. And for the past five years, I’ve been on my own doing it. It’s exhausting. And I wouldn’t change a thing.

Each of us prioritizes the things that are most important in our own lives, and do our best to achieve them. My two big focuses are ensuring I spend as much quality time with my kids as I can before they are both off to college in the next few years, and continuing to pursue the work I love with teams that are equally passionate. Of course, this lifestyle choice doesn’t leave a lot of extra time for hobbies or thriving social life, but I’m ok with that for this period.  It’s not optimal, but it’s the choice I willingly made to focus on the two things I care about most.

Here’s the thing that very few people talk about though. Startups and growth companies can be an incredible place to build an exceptional career experience. If you are willing to take on some risk, and you have an insatiable quest for learning, it’s one of the best possible environments to grow and develop your career. If you thrive on embracing a well-rounded, relatively stable work life, it may not be the best of fits for you. Workplaces are changing, regardless of their size, and are beginning to embrace the notions of things like the flexibility to attract and retain top talent. Regardless of gender or parental status, people today feel like they can (and should) give their very best at work and have an enriching life outside of the office. Companies are beginning to support that dynamic, and certainly, our increasingly networked world goes a long way in supporting our ability to do that. However, working mothers are still at a disadvantage.

How You Can Help...You (Oh, and Others)

This is not an easy problem to solve, and I don’t have a perfect solution to propose.   I have experienced the challenges personally and have witnessed so many others try to balance the dynamic of building a stellar career and manage an outside life. Whether it’s by necessity or desire, much of the world has moved past my mother’s era of staying home and raising children while the husband goes off to work. Many women are still trying to find their place in both worlds, and ways to successfully balance each. Perhaps they may get off to a strong start early in their careers with a company that embraces the notion of diversity and offers real support to working mothers. We haven’t quite solved the equation, however, when those same amazing women boldly try to “have it all” and get pregnant and then try to return to the career and play catch up.

While so much of the public debate today surrounds topics such as gender diversity, harassment and pay inequities, women who choose to have children while working in these types of environments face a whole other set of challenges.  While many startups are led by seasoned leaders, often these firms are filled with youthful lifestyles that include late nights, drinking, and being pelted with Nerf gun bullets. In other words, not exactly breastfeeding friendly. Does that mean women who thrive in growth environments all of a sudden need to give it up?  I’d argue no.

In Hollywood, women who possess youth, beauty, and talent stand the best chance of success. As they age, they find themselves with more limited roles and struggle to thrive.  We’ve seen many of them (think Streep, Witherspoon, etc.) take it no more, and have become entrepreneurs in their rights to take on leadership roles in projects that will allow them to do the work they love.  In the startup community, women face a similar dynamic; fit into the youthful culture or risk no longer fitting in.

Those women who choose to stay often become the pioneers to aid in creating maternity leave policies, the addition of mother’s rooms, and often, isolation from no longer feeling part of the team. This is a dynamic that many a new father doesn’t struggle with. Though he has five children, we never read of Elon Musk’s balancing of pursuing his business dream with his children; we celebrate his commitment to his company. However, when Marissa Meyer got pregnant and had the opportunity to run Yahoo, or Sheryl Sandberg loses her husband, it’s what we chose to fixate on in the media.

Yes, workplaces are becoming decidedly more parent-friendly. Often it is by necessity; it’s hard to attract huge numbers of talented people if you don’t celebrate and support a wide variety of human needs.  However, just because perks might be offered, it doesn’t mean the behaviors required to support their success exist yet. Providing a fully paid maternity leave is amazing; but if the woman returns to the office to be made to feel like persona non-grata, the company hasn’t addressed the full scope of the challenge.

From a biological perspective, women aren’t going to stop having babies if we want to continue to populate the world. They also aren’t going to give up on their hopes and dreams to pursue the career of their dreams, just like their male counterparts.  Inclusiveness is getting a lot of airtime right now, and that needs to include the notion of working moms as well. We still live in a world where for many working moms to thrive, they have to pretend to be focused solely on their job to get ahead; and pretend like their children don’t exist.  I don’t accept this.

I’m grateful I work at a company where we are working hard to create an environment where everyone can thrive. And I’m confident if others companies don’t do the same, we will see women use those incredibly entrepreneurial skills they built in these companies and tackle the right solution together.  In the meantime, consider the things each of us can do - regardless of whether we are a working mother or not - to change the game:

• Understand yourself and your objectives at the various points in your career. They change.You need to adapt.

• Don't back down. Make - and take - opportunities for yourself as both a professional and a Mom (or Dad. Or a person with an outside life of any sort that is meaningful to you).

• Don't give it up because it gets tough. It’s just a new challenge. Never give up what you love; find a new way to make it work for you.

• Fight to make your workspace parent-friendly. Or plain inclusive to all. This isn’t just about parental needs. It’s about human needs.

Christina Luconi is Chief People Officer for Rapid7. Follow her on Twitter: @peopleinnovator.

In Psych 101, we learned from Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs that after basic physiological and safety needs are met, we all crave a sense of love and belonging. Famed cultural anthropologist Margaret Mead suggested, “Call it a clan, call it a network, call it a tribe, call it a family; whatever you call it, whoever you are, you need one.”  The notion of “finding your tribe” has become a hot topic by many writers and experts over the last several years, and I’d argue for good reason. Though the notion of tribe is not at all a new one, our current day popular cultural definition is pretty straightforward; it’s essentially the way we think or behave in our social groups.

I used to tease my friends in more conservative professions, such as banking or law, that they went to a “job” each day. Maybe they were making a decent living from a financial standpoint, but I was instead reacting to the notion that they only interacted with a handful of co-workers. There was no emphasis on relationship building, collaboration, or community. Candidly, I couldn’t fathom how they could be either happy or successful in such an environment. Conversely, they thought I was insane to join companies that put such a heavy premium on these elements. And yet, I’d argue that we all want some form of community at work, whether we realize it or not.

We spend a large portion of our day with people from our workplace. There are benefits to sharing your time and experiences with a group of people who share an interest - and hopefully some passion - about the same things you do. There is a shared vernacular, and common goals to accomplish together. When we invest in building these relationships and partnerships, we move from a transactional model of interaction to a far more personal one. And when we bring our energized, motivated selves to that equation, we tend to attract others who operate similarly.  

Given my role, I never thought much about the power of my tribe at work. Building relationships and connecting with people is a core part of my job. And yet, while I was interviewing someone recently, I was asked to elaborate on a comment I made about my “people.” I shared that I had three main groups of people who play a significant role in my life here. Members of the executive team, members of my people strategy team, and a variety of co-workers from all over the globe. They all play a significant role in my success and happiness at work, whether they realize it or not. In a world dominated by social media and the number of “likes” something gets, these are the real-life, go-to people I trust when I need an honest opinion, a counterpoint, a different perspective, or someone to have my back. This incredible “tribe” of mine is dominated by one core component: trust.

While I certainly benefit from shared laughs and personal connections with a large group of my co-workers, the trust I’ve established with this group of cherished people that I’ve invested in over the years is paramount to my success and wellbeing at work. We’ve worked together through trying projects, and difficult circumstances. We’ve celebrated together when we’ve achieved successes.  And we are there for each other through the everyday challenges of work, offering each other a helping hand. We are truly in it together.

When you are at work, it can be easy for us to find a buddy or two from our teams to grab lunch with or play a game of ping pong during a break. However, to establish your cultivated core group of “your people” takes time, energy and effort. And yet, this is one of those things in life that can be truly worth your investment.  Willing to take on the challenge? Below, find a few simple suggestions to get you started.

UNDERSTAND WHO/WHAT YOU ARE IN SEARCH OF - I intentionally seek out people who are smart, bold and don’t take life too seriously.  I value people who have a point of view - especially if it differs from my own - so I can broaden my perspective.  I enjoy connecting with people who aren’t afraid to share their opinion. And most importantly, I truly bond with people who do all of this with a sense of humor.  Work can be intense; finding others, I can laugh along the way is essential to me.

UNDERSTAND YOURSELF AND WHAT YOU HAVE TO OFFER - I have come to know myself well enough over the years to know I don’t shy away from sharing what I am thinking.  For some people, that is highly valued. For others, it can be a big turn off; especially if they enjoy having a tribe filled with people who operate exactly as they do.  It’s not just about knowing who I find value in connecting with; it’s important to be self-aware enough to know who will find value in you, too.

UNDERSTAND THE POWER OF THE SAFETY NET - With my little tribe, I realize the relationships I value most are those that have come over time from a multitude of shared experiences and earned trust.  We all recognize that no one us is perfect, and we all have areas to grow and develop. When that acknowledgment exists along with that shared trust, that “safety net” becomes both evident and invaluable.  I have taken on some bold projects at work; knowing that I have a trusted core group of people to continue to test my ideas with, give me candid feedback, and provide emotional support keeps me thriving.

UNDERSTAND DIVERSITY OF THOUGHT IS VALUABLE - It can be a comfort to find those people at work who think similarly to ourselves.  That said, some of the most valued people in my tribe think entirely differently than I do, and I benefit significantly from that dynamic.  Sure, it can take extra energy, in the beginning, to build commonalities and a partnership when people are different from ourselves, but once that is established, watch your thinking and innovation skyrocket from the different perspectives.

Though no one seems to believe it, I’m an introvert to the core. Though I “play extrovert” at work, I’ve bolstered my productivity, effectiveness, and morale by investing in cultivating my tribes over the years. As with anything worth doing, it takes energy and time...but oh, to have your own set of trusted and valued people at work?  It’s one of my absolute favorite things about working.

“Water has always been an important and constant part of my life. Growing up outside of Boston, I spent a lot of time sailing out on the ocean. As a result, I was naturally interested in sustainability and ocean stewardship,” said Eliza Becton, Co-Founder and Head of Product at Bevi.

But Eliza’s path to founding her own company wasn’t directly from sustainability. She grew up loving both art and science and graduated with a Bachelor's of Science in Mechanical Engineering from Yale. After working in New York for a few years at an engineering firm, Eliza quickly realized that she wanted to work on something with a mission while also utilizing her creative skills.

“Fortunately, I soon discovered industrial design and went back to school for a masters degree at the Rhode Island School of Design. It was completely life-changing. It taught me how to ask the really hard questions like why are we doing what we’re doing? As a result, it was not just about creating things for the sake of creating them. It was about purpose and people and user-centered design,” Eliza said.

During research for her masters thesis, Eliza learned about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, an ever-expanding, floating mass of plastic waste in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

“That was really shocking to me and got me thinking about how I could design a product that could eventually replace those plastic bottled beverages. How do you create something that’s easier to use, more convenient, and more enjoyable for people?” Eliza asked.

She completed her master thesis with a product design concept that aimed to eliminate bottled beverage waste. After graduation, Eliza went back to Boston to work for startups as a designer, but she always kept this concept in the back of her mind.

And then plastic water bottles started showing up in the news. The town of Concord, Massachusetts, banned bottled water as did many school campuses. Eliza realized that this was the time to pursue her project, if she was ever going to do it.

“About this time, I was introduced to Sean Grundy, Bevi’s CEO, through mutual friends. He was an MBA candidate at MIT Sloan but also a sustainability nerd, like me. We met for coffee one day and spent hours chatting about our ideas. He was crazy enough to work with me and together we began entering business plan competitions. We eventually convinced Sean’s roommate and close friend, Frank, to join as our third co-founder. Sean and Frank Lee met in China before they even started at Sloan, both while working on water-related projects abroad,” Eliza said, describing the catalyst for her future company.

Bevi incorporated in August of 2013. By then, they had proven to themselves and others through several successful business competitions that it was possible to use design and technology to change user behavior from relying on bottled beverages. When they first started out, the Bevi team was doing really crude market tests with cardboard boxes and trying to get people to pay for things as early as possible.

“It was really embarrassing and we failed a lot, but we learned and moved on to the next idea or iteration. Those small failures were very important to understand and learn from,” Eliza remembers.

In the spring of 2014, Bevi was accepted into the Techstars Boston program, which became their early big break. With access to amazing mentors and peers, the team felt really lucky to learn what they did there. Techstars pushed the team a lot and they came out of the program finding Bevi’s product market fit—commercial offices.

“Once we figured that out, our first product, the Standup Bevi, started to take off in sales. People actually liked it -- they wanted it and were willing to pay for it. It felt like things had finally clicked. Our next challenge was figuring out how to scale. We kept improving our product for performance, reliability, and costs,” Eliza said.  

In the fall of 2017, the company released their second product, the Countertop Bevi. Launching a product with a more established, bigger team was a much different experience, than the original product which was built with a team of just five people.

“Moving forward, we will have to constantly ask ourselves the same question -- how do we work smarter and move faster? It’s a lot to do, but it’s a great challenge and fun to think about the sustainability impact that we are making. Right now, we’re saving about 2.5 million bottles per month. I feel lucky everyday that I get to work on something that I truly care about that has a real impact,” said Eliza.

Rapid Fire Q&A

BS: What do you like to do in your free time?

EB: Well, I have a two year old son so I like to spend my free time with him and my husband. I also enjoy cooking a lot. It’s kind of my new creative outlet these days, since I’m not doing as much design as I used to.

BS: How do you manage stress?

EB: [laughs] Not very well! I mean again, creativity is a great outlet for that. I think when I’m really stressed, I also try to make an effort to exercise or be outside. Additionally I enjoy seeing friends. Everyone has their own challenges in life so it’s nice to be able to talk to someone, be there for them and forget about your own stuff.

BS: How many cups of coffee do you typically drink in a day?

EB: I’m actually pregnant right now so I try to limit my coffee for hydration purposes. On a regular day, though, I drink maybe three to four cups.

BS: Where is your favorite spot in the Boston area?

EB: I love being on the water so I really enjoy the seaport. Sitting at a restaurant on the water is pretty amazing. The smell of the ocean, the fresh air—I love it.

BS: If you had to choose one thing other than family, what would you say is your greatest accomplishment?

EB: I’m really proud of Bevi, everything we’ve done and all the amazing people I get to work with every day.

BS: Ten years ago, is this where you would have seen yourself?

EB: No way! In fact, I would love to meet someone who fully anticipated where they were going to be in ten years and congratulate them on that. But I almost feel like I would be doing something wrong if I were living up to all my plans in life. I don’t know if I had even thought about where I wanted to be in ten years, ten years ago. I knew I wanted to be doing design. But other than that, I didn’t have any plans. I just wanted to feel like I was making an impact on the world and I feel like I am.

BS: What one piece of advice would you give to a recent college graduate?

EB: I feel like I’m lucky to have found what I want to do in life that also makes me happy. I’d recommend finding whatever that is for you and to consider paths that maybe aren’t as conventional. I’ve seen too many people take the safe route and do what their peers are doing, and one day they wake up realizing that their job isn’t fulfilling for them. If you have a vision for the career that will make you happy, go for it and work hard to get there. If you don’t yet know what will make you happy, take the time to understand what you really care about and find fulfilling. The saying is true: life is too short to waste your time doing something that you don’t love.

Procrastination. It’s something so many of us struggle with, for a whole host of reasons. While it is often thought of as a manifestation of laziness or disorganization, that is often not the dynamic at play. Rather, fear of failure, a need for perfection, or a lack of focus can be major contributors. What’s worse, when we do procrastinate, that behavior can lead to diminished performance, strained mental and physical health symptoms, and increased stress, worry, and guilt.

So if those procrastinators among us know all this, how exactly does one light the proverbial match under their butt to push past that initial starting line and make progress? By changing your perspective, you can try to break this pattern of behavior in a few simple steps - starting right now.

STOP BEATING YOURSELF UP

If you procrastinate, you’ve probably suffered from the dynamic of stressing yourself out the longer you put off whatever it is you needed to work on. The longer you hesitate, the more anxiety you can bring upon yourself and ultimately make it even more challenging to move forward. Emotions like stress, guilt, and regret can be completely draining. Continually beating yourself up for procrastinating in the first place will only serve to make you even more exhausted. Rather than continuing to beat yourself up, move on and focus on the item you need to tackle instead.

FIND 15 MINUTES

Of course, the project you need to tackle may take significantly longer than this. Knowing that, we often think, “I don’t have three hours this week to do my taxes, even though they are due in a few weeks!” Instead of focusing on the entire project, commit to finding 15 minutes TODAY to get started. If you actually follow through with that time block, you just might find two things happen.  For one, you’ve lessened the intimidation factor. Sometimes just getting started is the push you need to plot out your plan to get it accomplished. Additionally, once you’ve gotten started, you just might spend more than the 15 minutes as you begin to dig in. Progress feels good. While you are still on a high from your sudden burst of productivity, take the quick next step.

CHUNK IT DOWN

Perhaps you’ve taken that difficult first step getting started in the first place, but it can still be overwhelming to contemplate tackling an entire project. Rather than thinking of it as one ginormous project, chunk it into far more manageable bite-size pieces. For example, rather than thinking in terms of “I have a huge project on X I need to accomplish before I present it to my team next Tuesday,” break it down to “I have a big project I need to present next Tuesday. Today, I’ll commit to outlining the content I want to cover. Tomorrow afternoon at 3 pm, I’ve blocked time to do research to support my point of view. That leaves me one additional day to assemble the information and pull together the overall story.” Yes, this takes a bit of forward-thinking and planning. But, if you can break it down into these bite-size pieces, you’ll likely feel in control of the work, and you’ll no longer feel like you are under pressure to get it all done at the last minute.

START YOUR DAY TAKING ON THE HARD STUFF

One great habit of productive people are finishing their workday by spending a few minutes preparing for the following day. Try blocking out a chunk of time at the start of your workday when you are fresh to tackle this section of work. When you tackle a piece of the big project at the start, you get to ride the confidence wave that comes with making progress for the rest of your workday. You will also find it will likely be more comfortable to tackle the rest of your to-do list of less stress-inducing items throughout the day.

EMBRACE S*ITTY FIRST DRAFTS

In the book Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott, she shares her notion of “S*itty First Drafts.”  She’s essentially suggesting that we need to let go of our need to get things done perfectly the first time, and just aim to make progress. When we allow ourselves to take those first steps to create initial progress, we just might find the clarity and courage to make even further - and far better - progress in our second and third drafts and attempts. No matter what the daunting project is, aim to get it done first before you worry about ensuring it’s done right. You can’t edit or perfect what doesn’t yet exist.

CELEBRATE THE WINS

When you are a procrastinator, finally getting something over the goal line can feel like a massive victory. It’s getting started in the first place to ignite that chain of progress that is often the hardest part. For every chunk along the way, give yourself a little pat on the back to stay motivated. Whether it’s allowing yourself to go grab that Frappuccino or heading to that new food truck with a work buddy, find those small things that will serve to focus you and motivate you as you accomplish your small wins.

Challenge:  We likely can identify at least one item we’ve put off and procrastinated for far too long.  Rather than let it continue to fester, commit to it today. Identify it right now, and commit to getting started today. Guide yourself through the steps above, and just watch yourself tackle it to completion. You just might find the next time you are faced with a giant daunting task, you are more likely to tackle it head-on rather than procrastinate.