You've Seen Greatness (That's Why This Feels So Weird)

Why discomfort isn't dysfunction — it's the absence of contrast

Welcome to Frank Takeaways. I'm Frank, writing the notes worth keeping from decades at companies like Slack, Etsy, and Google. I run a coaching practice dedicated to guiding leaders through the tricky stuff of building products and high-performing teams.

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Fifteen minutes into a recent coaching session, a product lead at a Series A startup leaned forward and lowered her voice:

"Everything feels off. Am I crazy?"

She wasn't crazy. She'd just seen — or maybe better said, felt — greatness before. And now she was feeling its absence without quite knowing how to name it. This is the strange terrain you enter after experiencing higher standards. Nothing's broken — it's just that the contrast is gone.

More than a decade ago, Joe Kraus wrote a piece that I keep revisiting. The title said it all: "If You Don't Think You Need It, You Haven't Seen Greatness."

His point was…