Of Bosses and Work Environments

Hey everyone,

Today’s story is not as much a story as it is an observation. I once heard somewhere (I think it was in a video by Jay Shetty) that there are three ‘E’s that impact your life – Element, Energy and Environment.

Your element is something that you’re good at, which if you give up and do something else you may not thrive as well as you would in that element. For e.g., Micheal Jordan was in his element when he was playing basketball, but after his switch to baseball, nobody remembers him.

Energy is the frequency at which you operate. You may thrive in high energy environments with high pressure or you may thrive in low energy environments with low pressure. You have to figure out which is best for you there.

Your environment is your surrounding or the place where you are. For e.g., if you take a fish out of water, no matter how many luxuries you give it, it’ll die. You will have to create an environment in which you thrive; others (especially your bosses) aren’t going to do it for you.

And that is what today’s story is about. How a change in my work environment helped me be happier and improve in my work.

I have been working with a particular client- from their office- for a few months now. (Yes, it is the same client I mentioned in the last post.) They have an incredible work environment that is nurturing and takes care of their employees and even contractors like me.

I am a content creator (my element) and that is what I do here as well. It’s just that the content I create is a little out of my comfort zone- hence the learning and improvement. In the months that I’ve been here, I have started to help manage a project, learnt a little bit about scripting code, and so much more.

Being asked to manage a project (though only partly) has put me in both high energy situations and low energy ones, and I seem to have found that I can manage both pretty well. I believe, though, that I thrive best somewhere in the middle.

At my original workplace too, I have had some incredible learning and self-improvement; I will not deny that. However, at this client office I am happier, and that is purely due to the work environment and the person I report to here- let’s call him Batman :P.

Batman trains and teaches through action and is extremely to-the-point. Thanks to his training, I’m now able to manage the project he handed me without too much of his help. And he doesn’t insist on being informed about every little move I make.

I believe that it takes a really self-assured and grounded person to be like that.

In fact, most of the management in this company is like that- grounded and real. This reflects in the company policy and the work environment created. Like I said in another post about a work trip, we work hard and we party hard too.

The bottom line of this story is that the people you surround yourself with and your environment really do make a huge difference in your personal happiness, no matter how aloof and self-reliant you believe you are.

This is an important realization for me because I have been feeling the negative effects of being in the wrong environment for a very long time. And I’ve always considered myself a rather self reliant person, especially when it comes to my inner world.

So I’ve decided to take Jay’s advice (from his video about the 3 ‘Es’) the next time I feel something is off. I’ll remember to check whether it is my Element, my Energy or my Environment that is out of alignment and sort out the issue. You guys can too!

Well, that’s it for today… Until next time folks!