Here at the Coaching Blog- one of the world’s leading blogs on the subject of Leadership and Coaching we quite often post articles by leading authors and authorities- today we are delighted to post an article from Medium.com by Jon Westenberg.
The entitled don’t get breaks. They get broken.
When I was in my early 20’s, I was relatively certain that I was the greatest thing since sliced bread. I was arrogant. I was self obsessed. I’d founded and sold a music business, and to my mind that made me a superstar. I was looking for something to do, and it seemed to make sense that I’d go and work for a tech company. When I applied at Google, there was no hesitation, no moment of doubt. I didn’t even consider the possibility that I wouldn’t even land an interview.
Unfortunately, that’s exactly what happened. It left me dumbfounded. Not even an interview or a conversation. I applied again and again, over the years, looking to land a marketing role with the company. Again and again, I was knocked back. Somewhere along the line, I stopped trying, and I started blaming Google for never giving me a chance.
It was their loss, I decided. Theirs and only theirs. They needed me, more than I needed them. They were missing out on a superstar. I started to hate the company.
Looking back now, I can’t believe how entitled and conceited I was. Why would Google have given a job to a kid with no formal qualifications, no alignment with the company and a shitty attitude?
Being young is often about making mistakes, and learning to live with them, and then growing older and learning to take responsibility for them. That’s what my career since has been about. Over the past few years, I’ve stopped focusing on trying to land a tech job, and I’ve enjoyed following my passions. I’ve also let the school of life kick the shit out of me, and take me down a peg or two.
That conceited kid feels like a lifetime ago. Being him, doesn’t even feel familiar. But I know he’s a part of me, a part of some of my worst qualities, and a part of the entitlement I used to be prone to.
I don’t know where our entitlement comes from. I don’t know where we get the idea that we’re worth more than others, that we deserve more, are more, or will be more. But it’s an attitude I see in more than a few startup founders, in some of the entrepreneurs that I talk to. They almost act as though they’re entitled to winning.
I know this doesn’t apply to all founders. In fact, it doesn’t even apply to most of you. But it does apply to a little sliver of entitlement that a lot of us pick up without even knowing it — myself included — and it does apply to the vocal few who are building startups because their Mom told them they were unique and wonderful and deserved only the best.
If you believe that having a big idea, or being in a tech company is enough of a validation that it proves you’re the next Elon Musk, then you’re bound to run into problems. In startups, as in a professional career, as with any opportunity, you have to follow the words of the great Malcolm Tucker: get the fuck in, or fuck the fuck off. You can’t hang around waiting for the world to give you a big invitation to the grand stage, just because you think you’re owed a shot.
When you realize that shot just isn’t coming, it’s going to break you.