How to Be Your Best Teammate In Your Career Transition Project

The Team Project Performance Domain: Building support systems as a solopreneur

"You're one of the best mentors I've ever worked with."

"You have a gift for making people feel heard and understood."

"You make complex goals feel achievable."

This is actual feedback I received over the years as a project manager. I could help my project team members break down overwhelming tasks, push through challenges, and understand how their work connected to bigger goals. I strived to be the synthesizer, the facilitator, the one who helped others thrive.

Now the person who needs mentoring most is me, and I'm terrible at it.

Several months into my solopreneur adventure, as I started to develop a personal brand, I've discovered something humbling: Being a great teammate to others doesn't automatically translate to being a great teammate to yourself.

The collaboration I thrived on disappeared, the creative bursts that used to spark my best ideas went away, and the ability to mentor someone through a hard moment turned out to work for everyone except me.

Building a Team as a Solopreneur

Building a Team as a Solopreneur: The Team Performance Domain Reality Check

In the PMBOK 7th Edition, Team is one of the core Project Performance Domain because most meaningful work happens through and with other people. Even when your "team" is technically just you.

But here's what I learned recently:

When you transition from leading teams to being a team of one, you don't just lose teammates.

You lose team dynamics that you might not have realized you needed.

What I lost in my career transition:

The Collaboration Energy: That spark that happens when ideas build on each other in real-time conversations.

The External Perspective: Other people seeing possibilities and blind spots that I can't see from inside my own head.

The Mentor Support: Someone checking in on progress, asking good questions, celebrating wins.

The Division of Strengths: Each person contributing their best skills while others handle what they're not great at.

The Mentee Flow: Helping others grow and develop, which actually energized and motivated me more than solo work.

The Shared Load: Emotional support when things get tough, shared excitement when things go well.

The Mentoring Paradox

As I realized that I could mentor anyone through most challenges except mentoring myself through my own, I also realized how unreasonably tough I was on myself.

When a team member said “this feels overwhelming,” I’d help them break things into smaller pieces, remind them of past successes in similar situations, ask questions to help them see solutions or clarify thinking.

When I felt overwhelmed, none of that showed up for me. I’d spiral into “I should have this figured out by now,” I’d forget any challenge I’ve successfully navigated before, I criticize myself for not knowing things I’ve never done before, and I’d minimize my progress while maximizing my problems.

I realized I have two completely different standards: compassionate, developmental, encouraging for team members, and harsh, illogical, impatient for myself.

The Collaboration Withdrawal

I didn't know how much of my creative energy came from bouncing ideas off other people until I no longer had anyone to bounce them off.

In corporate, an idea would move through a room: "What if we tried..." "That reminds me of..." "What about this angle..." "Yes, and we could also..."

On my own, I found myself staring at a blank screen wondering if an idea was any good, with not one available to talk it through.

The brainstorming magic I thought was just how ideas happen was actually how ideas happen when you have thinking partners.

The TEAM Framework: Building Your Support System When You're a Team of One

After months of struggling with solo everything, and as I was earning the required PDHs to renew my PMP certification it dawned on me that I can apply PMI’s Team Project Performance Domain principles to my situation.

In this new career transition I had to learn to:

1. Be my own best teammate AND find external collaboration

2. Mentor myself with the same care I showed others

3. Create accountability systems that replace team check-ins

4. Build a support network that provides different kinds of team energy

That struggle led me to develop the TEAM Framework, tailored from project management principles. Four moves for building real support when you’re a team of one.

T: Take Stock of Your Support Needs

Before you can build support, you have to know what kind you're actually missing. The six things I named losing earlier, collaboration energy, external perspective, mentor support, division of strengths, mentee flow, and shared load, were my own "take stock" inventory.

Most people skip this step and jump right in to look for people to support them without knowing what people would or could do to help.

E: Evaluate Your Current Network

Once you know what you need, take an objective look at who you already have in your sphere. The gap between who's in your contacts list and who's actually available to think with you, hold you accountable, or open a door will help you determine who else you might need on your team

A: Activate Strategic Connections

This is where you build specific relationships that fill the gaps you just identified, deliberately rather than by chance. In my own experience, that meant five categories of external relationships, each supporting in a unique way.

• The Thinking Partners (Brainstorming & Collaboration): Other entrepreneurs or freelancers in your industry, people with complementary skills who think differently than you, former colleagues who understand your background and can bridge ideas.

• The Accountability Partners (Progress & Check-ins): Fellow career pivoters who check in regularly, business acquaintances with similar goals and timelines, mentors or coaches who ask good questions regularly.

• The Advisory Board (Strategy & Perspective): People ahead of you in similar journeys, industry experts who can spot opportunities and pitfalls, trusted friends with business sense and honest feedback.

  
  

• The Emotional Support Team (Encouragement & Reality Checks): Family and friends who believe in your vision but can also see blind spots, peer groups going through similar career transitions, professional networks that understand entrepreneurial challenges.

• The Skills Exchange Network (Complementary Strengths): Other solopreneurs you can trade services with, people with skills you lack who need skills you have, professional communities where you can both give and receive help.

M: Maintain and Nurture Relationships

In corporate, teams were assigned and maintained by the organization. As a solopreneur, team building is a continuous part of the job, and support systems that aren't actively maintained slowly erode until you're back where you started.

• Actively cultivate and maintain relationships

• Regularly assess what kinds of team energy you're missing

• Adjust your external team as your business evolves

• Invest time and energy in supporting others. Pay it forward.

What I'm Learning About Team Building As a Solopreneur

Some days I miss the corporate team energy intensely, the spontaneous brainstorming, the shared excitement about project wins, the collective problem-solving when things got challenging. Other days I appreciate the freedom of being a team of one, no personalities to manage, no competing priorities to navigate, no compromise required on vision or direction. And most days it's about integration. Learning to be my own best teammate while building external relationships that provide the collaboration and support I need.

What I'm discovering:

• I'm actually a better mentor to myself when I have external thinking partners. Other people help me see my own situation more clearly.

• I can create different types of team energy through intentional relationship building. It doesn't happen automatically like in corporate, but it can be just as valuable.

• Being great at supporting others is actually a superpower for building external teams. People want to collaborate with someone who knows how to be a good teammate.

• I don't miss managing team drama, but I do miss the energy of shared purpose. Finding people with aligned goals creates similar motivation.

Your Turn: TEAM Framework Audit

T: Take Stock:

• What aspects of team collaboration did you thrive on in previous roles?

• Where do you struggle most without team input or support?

• What types of external perspective would be most valuable for your current goals?

E: Evaluate

• What types of thinking partners would energize your creative process?

• Who could provide accountability and check-ins for your goals?

• What skills or perspective are you missing that others could provide?

A: Activate

• Who in your network could become thinking partners or accountability partners?

• What professional communities or peer groups align with your goals?

• How could you provide value to others while building relationships you need?

M: Maintain

• How do you talk to yourself when facing challenges versus how you'd talk to a team member?

• What questions do you ask yourself versus questions you'd ask someone you're mentoring?

• How do you celebrate your progress versus how you'd celebrate your team's wins?

Being a team of one doesn't mean being alone. It means being strategic about building the external team relationships that energize your best work.

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Next up in the Performance Domains series: Planning - or "How to Plan When You Don't Know What You Don't Know (And Why That's Actually Perfect)."

Following The Intuitive PM Approach™? I'm sharing real-time lessons a=bout building team dynamics as a solopreneur. Because the best team strategies come from actual team building challenges in progress.