Man, a year later with nothing moving is a good sign, but pocket screws alone don't hold a frame square. It's the glue doing the real work there, the screws just clamp it while it sets. Skip the glue and those joints will creep on you eventually.

You said you tracked your time and found 14 hours a week going to stuff that did not help you, so I want the details. Which specific tasks were eating those hours? Was it meetings, side projects, favors for other teams? And when you started saying "that's not in my lane," did anyone push back or try to guilt you? I keep hearing this advice but nobody ever breaks down what the actual boundary looks like in practice. Give me a real example of one thing you cut and how the conversation went.

Soft skills as a thing you "practice" like a drill always felt off to me. The stuff your old boss was talking about is really just being a decent person to be around, and that SHOWS UP in small moments, not in a training plan. Like last Tuesday on your panel, did you notice who cut people off vs who asked a follow up question? That's the whole ballgame right there. You don't get better at it by reading books, you get better by paying attention to how your words land on people in the room. So the pushback: stop treating it like a skill to grind and start treating it like a mirror.