[wnolens]

> I left a large tech company with the dream of building a startup. I failed and am back doing consulting work and figuring out my next step. After realizing I'd failed, I fell in a deep rut.

Same. A verrrrry deep rut.

Taking a complex job in big tech again let me flex my only partially atrophied dev muscles back to full strength. The narrow focus (entrepreneurship is sooo ambigious) and steady stream of hard work let me rebuild my confidence.

Not completely out of the rut, but after struggling for months post-failure, I would still be in that rut (or worse) if not for a steady job. Religion might have helped too, but I'm not the type unfortunately.