We usually divide working life into two identities: employees have jobs; entrepreneurs have businesses.
There is another useful perspective. An employee can treat the job as an intentional one-customer business. The employer is the current customer. The employee brings time, skill, judgment, reliability, and care in exchange for pay, experience, relationships, and other forms of value.
This does not erase the employer’s authority, labor law, unequal bargaining power, or the practical need for a paycheck. It restores a measure of authorship inside the arrangement.
Know What Your Business Is Developing
Beyond the job description, ask what you are learning about:
- the work you do exceptionally well
- tasks that drain you or need different support
- sales, communication, service, operations, or leadership
- the environments where your nervous system works best
- the kind of problems people trust you to solve
- skills you may eventually offer to another employer, client, or collaborator
A job can produce income and information. Even a poor fit can clarify the conditions your next chapter needs.
One Customer Is Still a Concentration Risk
If a business has only one customer, losing that customer matters. The same is true of employment. We do not need to panic about it, but we can respect the reality.
Keep relationships alive. Notice how your field is changing. Maintain evidence of your work where confidentiality permits. Continue learning. Build some financial runway when possible. These are not acts of disloyalty. They reduce the terror that can make a workplace feel like the only door in the world.
Tapping: My Employer Decides What I Am Worth
Side of the Hand: Even though this job has enormous influence over my income, it does not contain the whole value of what I know and offer.
Even though I am an employee, I can relate to my work with more intention and authorship.
Even though I need practical stability, I can keep developing choices without pretending every risk has disappeared.
Top of the Head: They are my only customer.
Eyebrow: Their opinion feels like the market verdict.
Side of the Eye: Losing this job would matter.
Under the Eye: No wonder I feel vulnerable.
Under the Nose: I can respect the real dependency.
Chin: And notice what remains mine.
Collarbone: My skills, learning, and relationships travel with me.
Under the Arm: I can become more intentional here.
Top of the Head: What value am I creating?
Eyebrow: What am I learning about my best work?
Side of the Eye: What conditions help me thrive?
Under the Eye: Where do I need clearer agreements or support?
Under the Nose: What option can I quietly develop?
Chin: I do not have to quit to reclaim authorship.
Collarbone: I can serve this customer without surrendering my future.
Under the Arm: My working life is larger than one role.
Take a breath. Name one asset this job is helping you build that remains yours.
Authorship Is Not Pretending You Control Everything
An intentional stance should not become another way to blame ourselves for layoffs, discrimination, unhealthy management, or economic conditions. Some workplaces are exploitative. Some choices are painfully constrained. Practical support, documentation, collective action, legal advice, or a safer exit may be needed.
Authorship means working with the agency that is actually available. We can clarify expectations, improve a skill, renegotiate a task, create a boundary, explore another role, or recognize that the present job is financing a different future.
The shift is subtle but powerful: “I belong to this job” becomes “I am in a working relationship with this organization, and I am still the steward of my working life.”
Session Audio
This Guide was adapted from a Thriving Now Circle session with Rick Wilkes and Cathy Vartuli, recorded May 7, 2008. The transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors.