I understand how you feel about assertiveness. There’s something to be said about just being who you are and, like you said, sending it out as professionally as possible.

often hate my time at RD too because I spent two years gaining experience that just pushed me away from what I saw myself doing. Luckily we’re young and have plenty of time and energy to make things right. For me, that’s working 10x as hard to make up the time: and remembering that I learned a lot over the past two years that I might not have known before. Where I think RD helped us (and I can see in you) is that we were given the chance to lead and contribute and sometimes just create and that trust and freedom isn’t often found at bigger companies. You know that you make good decisions as an assertive, outspoken and creative voice: you have the experience to back it up. You can lean on that, and continue to speak even when you think others aren’t listening. They will listen sometime.