Kool-Aid

As a wet-behind-the-ears Marketing Actuary, I can remember one of my first workshops standing in front of a room of independent financial advisers to explain the risk and investment products the company I was working for had launched. A few clearly had a bone to pick. Any bone. And I was fresh meat. As a newby, I was attempting to be very polite. It took a senior marketing person to step in and answer back with skilful banter. As a youngster, it is easy to take all “the adults” seriously. Not as the bunch of adultchildren you realise we all are. It’s easy to drink the Kool-Aid and see the company you work for as a cult, rather than part of something bigger. Gradually you will see people move companies, and get treated by companies they bought into the rhetoric of as gangrenous limbs. Gradually, you can learn to detach. Public Speaking (and work in general) can be frightening because you feel like you are being judged. Until you realise that even the Emperor is wearing no clothes. And giggle at the love handles.