One of my biggest happiness lessons: you are not limited by who your employer says you are

I am not a lawyer and also skipped many of my commercial law lectures at university (don’t tell my parents). This post is, therefore, not about who owns the intellectual property that we generate during our 9 to 5’s although I will touch on this topic at times. I am not a legal expert, so when your employer sues you, please don’t quote my “advice”.

Now that is out the way…I’m really wondering about how much credit the individual or employer should take for skills and successes achieved over a career. Picture this scenario. You are invited by an industry body to be a guest speaker at an event. They specifically want you to share your experiences in your field using actual examples. Assuming you are not planning on bringing your employer’s name into disrepute are the examples you site yours, or your employers? Legally, the answer is black and white depending on the applicable law and employment contract. But what about practically and maybe emotionally?

When you tell people about your professional self, about what you have been up to and what your interests are, do you tell them in the context of your employer? Or does your employer not matter in the big scheme of things? I spent many years of life working for a large corporate. A truly amazing organisation and one that was considered to have the best employer brand in the industry, country, continent and globe.

Succeeding in this organisation became an obsession and the trend started emerging where career progression and work chitchat became standard issue even outside of work. Social engagements were with workmates and the topic of discussion usually became work. It started to feel like all validation came from work. As our careers progressed, it felt more and more to me that if anyone progressed at work faster than me, it meant they were just doing life better than me.

Of course companies feed on this insecurity and this is enhanced by having many work levels. It is the culture of the organisation to refer to people by work level. The higher the work level, the greater your status in the office…and for some the greater their perceived status of themselves overall. A friend of mine used to say that it felt like a cult where everyone was trying so hard to get the leader to like them. Where suddenly skills and talents that weren’t useful in advancing ones career stopped mattering at all.

I would notice how people would be extremely friendly outside of the work environment in social settings, but would not hesitate to throw you under the bus if their work status was threatened. I remember one year one of the directors giving me a really bad performance review and going all out to prove that the challenges she was facing were caused by me. Only to be invited a few months later for various social engagements at her house like old friends. Of course I went. It’s hard to say no to free food!

The experience with this director affected me so badly that it prompted me to make some changes. One day I decided to try and build a life of joy that did not revolve around the office and I am very grateful that I made that decision. I started working less after hours, started exercising regularly and picked up two childhood passions of reading and writing. I invested a lot of time and energy into my amazing family and my marriage thrived. As I post this I have been invited to speak at a conference and am averaging reading at least 1 book per month. I’m learning a new language too and have started some initiatives to help other people with their own personal development.

As things go I eventually resigned from the cult, but the new way of thinking never left me. I began to fit my new job into my life and not the other way around. I spent time connecting with people outside of my work environment, reading, attending talks and on my personal development. Suddenly it feels like the whole world is very interested in what I have to say. They don’t care about my work level. They probably never did anyway.

The crux of what I am trying to say is this. Don’t let your employer fool you into believing that the value the world derived from you is reflected in your progress at work. Being promoted in the work context is not a proxy for achieving success. Progressing slower than peers is not a proxy for failure. Instead, I encourage everyone to look for personal growth opportunities outside of the work environment. To find a way of de-linking happiness with the progress one achieves in corporates. Like I said in one of my earlier blogs it’s all a big scam anyway. As soon as the company stopped having a hold of me I felt this great weight lift off my shoulders. Friends even commented that something was different about me but they could not pinpoint what exactly. All it really was, was that I stopped giving the office the power to affect my happiness. And I’m so happy I made this decision.