But if you take this route—if you go around your boss and start making a fuss all over the company—make sure the issues you’re raising are not about yourself.

I remember we had a huge all-hands meeting at Apple once—these meetings would only happen two, maybe three times a year. And a guy stands up during the Q&A and starts asking Steve Jobs why he didn’t get a raise or a good review. Steve looks at him in stunned disbelief and says, “I can tell you why. Because you’re asking this question in front of ten thousand people.”

He was fired shortly thereafter.

So don’t be that guy.

5.2. Breakpoints

“The same happens in business. But people are not stem cells. Sometimes you’ll work with a specialist who’s thrilled by the idea of focusing on just one element of their job, but for most people narrowing their responsibility doesn’t feel natural and inevitable—it freaks them out. And this process is particularly terrifying in the very beginning, after everyone gets used to doing everything, when there are virtually no management layers and you all just agree on a direction and start sprinting. But it happens later as well—even at big companies. Even at huge ones.

The following out-of-work period was difficult but gave him [DeVore] some real exercise in a new kind of resonance:

The unsuccessful job-hunting became very frustrating, and I became very depressed. So much so that I made myself susceptible to a virus that resulted in spinal meningitis. And I was laid down flat in bed for three months with no income coming in. Nothing coming in at all and a wife who was pregnant, mortgage payments that were overdue, and every time I started to stand up my head just throbbed and I couldn’t do anything. All I could do was read. And so I had my wife go to the library.

I said, “Get me every book you can on every great person, every person who has been successful.” In these three months I devoured about twenty-five autobiographies and biographies of great people. And every time I read these biographies or autobiographies I identified with these people. These people became models.

But are we missing something here? Is the separation we perceive between work and life helping or hindering us in our quest for the good life? What if the value of work—even work we dislike—lies not just in getting paid, but also in the moment-to-moment sensations of being alive in the workplace, and the feeling of vitality we get from being connected to others? What if even the most ordinary workday presents real opportunities for improving our lives and our sense of being connected to the broader world?

We’re self preserving. Most of us would never intentionally push someone else down to get where we want to go. The key word here is “intentionally,” because intention involves thought. When we’re triggered and not thinking, our desire to protect ourselves first takes over. When layoffs loom at a company, otherwise decent people will quickly throw each other under the bus to keep a job. Sure, they wouldn’t consciously want to hurt their colleagues, but if it comes down to “them versus me,” they will ensure they come out on top. That’s biology.