The Ambitious: For Them, Well-Being and Work Might Be Mutually Exclusive

 "We’re well into the corporate well-being boom, and things are looking pretty grim. The effort is there, but by and large, most attempts to move the needle on well-being have been frustrating failures." - The Wall Street Journal, May 2, 2022

That probably is especially true for the ambitious.

Face it, essentially, at least as they assess the workplace (even if it's remote) it's a setting of scarcity. Usually there is only a very limited number of opportunities for landing a promotion, more money, more influence, and more power. For them the way the game is configured generates stress. Of course, some of them might thrive on stress. But if they don't there is no path for them to the type of well-being the balance experts envision. 

This reality, of course, plays out on a major scale in the up or out system of Big Law. To have jumped through all those hoops to get to be an associate in an elite law firm one has to be ambitious. Yet the odds of even lasting more than a few years are against most associates. Very few will make it to the level of non-equity partner. Once a partner then the next chase has to be made an equity partner. Meanwhile partners have to continue showcasing their abilities in order not to be forced out.

Is there a professional utopia with a real shot at well-being?

In a podcast interview with Paul Chaney on freelancing and aging he asked me why I had gone the indie route. Without hesitation I answered it was to reduce the chest-pain kind of fear. When working full-time in the Fortune 50 fear was always within me. I had noticed, though, that the communications vendors they parachuted in were relaxed. They had spread the risk of earning a living across a number of clients. That, I decided, was for me. And, no surprise, here I am "at my age" in perfect health.

Connect with the Editor-in-Chief Jane Genova at janegenova374@gmail.com

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