Who Are You Happiest Working For?

Something I'm slowly figuring out: in order to be happy with your work, you need to figure out who you are most happy working for.

By "working for" I don't necessarily mean "the people who pay you" but more specifically, the people whose approval of your work matters most.

• If you're working for your boss, you're an employee.

• If you're working for your clients, you're a consultant.

• If you're working for yourself, you're an artist.

• If you're working for your customers, you're a business owner.

• If you're working for your board/investors, you're an executive.

• If you're working for your constituents, you're a public servant.

• And if you're working for beneficiaries, you're an advocate/caregiver.

I've found that I'm most happy when I'm working for a large number of people with low-to-medium expectations (customers, constituents, and beneficiaries) rather than a smaller number of people with high expectations (a boss, a client, investors, myself).

Many people intuit something similar, so they start a business/nonprofit or run for office. But then they often end up working for their investors and big-dollar donors, so they have new bosses again.

I'm consulting now, which is a lot better for me than being an employee, but I'd like to be back in a role where I’m working primarily for a lot of customers/beneficiaries rather than a few clients. The trick is being careful not to inadvertently shift who I'm working for. That's harder: you need to build a self-sustaining product or organization rather than one propped up by a few people with big money who want a 100x return on their investment.

But it seems so, so worth it.