💡 Lessons From DoorDash, ⚡ Mood Follows Action, and 🔎 Maintaining Perspective

PROGRESSION: 2025, Vol 3

I was recently a guest on the People Managing People podcast. David, the host, asked several questions about my time at DoorDash. It was a job I was very much unprepared for. The work was challenging. I was responsible for things I’d never done before. Expectations were high. The pace was relentless. I felt overwhelmed.

Be Careful What You Wish For

My first day was in early December. For the next few months, I woke up every morning with a stomach ache. I didn’t sleep well. I was anxious a lot. Over Christmas I had a conversation with my dad. I told him I thought I made a bad decision. I should have stayed at LinkedIn. The pace was slower and my compensation was higher. Maybe I wasn’t cut out for the startup world.

My dad asked me if I could get my job back at LinkedIn. I didn’t think I could. He replied, “Well, it sounds like your only option is to put your head down and make things work at DoorDash.” The conversation ended. I tried to follow his advice.

Interestingly, after about three months, the morning stomach aches stopped. I was less anxious. The work was still challenging, but I was making progress. My confidence increased. The pace was just as fast, but I grew to enjoy it. Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “That which we persist in doing becomes easier to do, not that the nature of the thing has changed but that our power to do has increased.” This was true for me at DoorDash and is true in all aspects of our lives.

Paternity Leave Reprieve

Fast forward a few years and DoorDash is 4x the size. We hired a Chief People Officer. My scope was reduced. I was now leading compensation and benefits. I’d hired multiple team members and was partnering with a world-class consultant to build a compensation framework that would scale with our expected growth.

We had a new CFO who wanted to be closely involved in our compensation practices. The Board of Directors was paying more attention to how much equity we were giving to employees. Part of my role was setting salary ranges, and many felt they were too low. Leaders throughout DoorDash regularly disagreed with my decisions and didn’t hesitate to voice them. The expectations of me and my team seemed to be increasing each day. I was stressed and exhausted. It felt like I was running on a treadmill, and DoorDash kept pounding the button that makes it go faster. I was running as hard as I could, but I was struggling to keep up.

I found it difficult to disconnect from work. Even when my body wasn't at the office, my mind was there. I'd be physically with my family, but my thoughts were elsewhere. I didn’t always think I was performing well. I wasn't sure whether my boss was pleased with my performance either. Approaching total burnout, I thought about quitting.

A few months later, my wife and I welcomed our fourth child. With three other young children to take care of, I was needed at home more than ever. I took a solid two months off work, more paternity leave than I’d taken for our first three kids combined. It was the best thing that could have happened.

I deleted all work-related apps from my phone. At first it was hard to disconnect from the day-to-day, but I got used to it. I was calmer. Never someone who could sit still for a nap, I’d find myself asleep on the couch, holding our newborn. My anxiety disappeared.

Those two months are a time that I’ll cherish forever. We had a lot of family time. I took my kids to the park. I coached their baseball teams. I saw the world more clearly. My job was important, but not nearly as important as the work I was doing at home. It never would be. I always knew that deep down, but two months of being disconnected from the daily work grind reminded me of that.

The two months ended, and it was time to go back to work. All the petty squabbles and interpersonal frustrations at DoorDash seemed insignificant. I saw my challenging coworkers in a new light. I had more empathy. It was as if I had started a new job. I had hit the reset button. The baggage I'd been carrying was gone.

Paternity leave brought me something I desperately needed—perspective.

Takeaways

In both stories, someone came into my life to intervene and prevent me from making bad decisions. The first was my dad, who pushed me to see that the best path to take in my new job was the one I was on. I just needed to persevere. The second was my newborn daughter, who’s birth created an opportunity to step back and see my life and my work from a different perspective.

In both situations I thought about quitting my job. In hindsight, it’s clear that doing so would have been a bad decision. As you look at your work and life, who can you turn to for guidance, insight, or support? What can you do to step back and see things from a different perspective?

What I’m Learning

• I’ve thought a lot about this quote from Marjorie Hinckley: "There isn’t a person you wouldn’t love if you could read their whole story."

  • This is particularly relevant for difficult, frustrating people. I’ve found that if I put in the effort to know someone—to truly understand them—my perspective changes.

  • No, this isn't naivete—some people are toxic and do want to bring you down. This is about taking a step back to understand what others have been through and how that's shaped the person they've become.

• Another second lesson that’s been on my mind: Mood follows action. This Henry Ford quote drives this home:

  • “I pity the poor fellow who is so soft and flabby that he must always have ‘an atmosphere of good feeling’ around him before he can do his work. There are such men. And in the end, unless they obtain enough mental and moral hardiness to lift them out of their soft reliance on ‘feeling,’ they are failures.”

    • If you wait for inspiration, flow, or "good vibes" to do your work, you'll never get started. There are many times you should listen to your feelings. But often you just need to ignore them.

    • Get started. The rest will take care of itself.

Gratitudes

I’ve found power in regularly expressing gratitude so I’ll continue the habit. I’m grateful for people who push us to do things we don’t want to do but are good for us. This happens in school, work, health, and other aspects of life. We think we know what we want and need. The reality may be something different.

One example of this is my wife pushing our family to go hiking at Zion. It was a Sunday and we had a free afternoon. The kids grumbled. My son yelled, “Dad, you don’t even want to go. You’re just doing this because mom wants to!” But less than an hour later we were in the park, enjoying nature, hiking as a family. It was a beautiful afternoon. The kids would never admit it, but they’re glad they went. I’m grateful for people who push us to do good things.

If I can do anything to help you, please reach out. As always, thank you for reading.

All the best,

Nathan

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