Its important I know, you ain't me

The other day someone tried to make me feel important by giving me the pride of place at a dinner table. What I wanted was to be invisible.

In my work life I've met a few people for whom being important was most important. They are the kinds who want the pride of place. The kind who want their names printed on bureaucratic documents they can sign. Makes them feel important. The kind who drop names.

Now if someone wants to be important, that's fine by me. The mistake they make is when they try and bait me with the 'esteem' lure. Like I said, I want to be invisible. The reason why the bait's offered to me is because these 'important' people tend to think that everyone's like them and so want to be important. It ain't so. Why they can't see that it ain't so, is because they are steeped in lack of Emotional Intelligence. At least on three of its components, namely, Self Awareness, Self Regulation and Empathy. That is, they can't recognise their own hunger for importance, therefore don't curtail it, and can't disconnect from themselves to see that others don't live the world they live.

People drunk on importance make lousy marketers. Because they can't disconnect from themselves to see things the way consumers see it. They tend to believe that consumers want what they want. Its like opening a restaurant with a menu that's listed with food you like, because you think everyone's bound to like it.

Self Awareness, Self Regulation and Empathy are critical traits of marketers. Its what allows them to put themselves aside and view the world the way consumers see it.