Fortune Favors The Bold

Have you ever engaged with a truly spoiled child?

It’s tempting to think of spoiled children as cold, calculating brats, calmly deploying tantrums as tools of manipulation. But if you’ve ever been a spoiled child, you’ll know this is far from the truth. When a spoiled child doesn’t get what he wants, he feels like the world is spinning completely out of control. He is a victim of his emotions (and he really feels as badly as he acts).

A spoiled child literally can’t cope with the reality where things don’t happen the way he expects. He’s held prisoner by his feelings.

And a coddled child literally can’t cope when his excuses don’t work.

When the world fails to deliver the expected result to a spoiled child, or a coddled child, they feel like their world is ending. Their egos react accordingly, to force external change, to protect their mental model of the universe.

Sound familiar?

When you live and work in an insulated life — divorced from the end result of your work — you are spoiled. You’re graded more on your ability to please and manage gatekeepers than your work product. Gatekeepers are human; humans can be persuaded to accept excuses. That doesn’t apply to me. I know, but. I’m not good at that. What I really want to do is. The client said. I tried my best.

Find yourself dropped into a reality-driven environment and blam! Your carefully groomed gatekeeper skills are useless. Your ego is at risk. And it fights back.