journey

PHOENIX FOCUS | Entitlement at work
Entitlement
at work
Dr. John Townsend, author of The
Entitlement Cure, explains how to get
over yourself and get to work.
By Julie Wilson
If you’re like millions of other working
professionals, chances are you’ve already
joined the ultimate professional networking
website, LinkedIn®.
Have you ever encountered someone who cut to the
head of the line or parked in the fire lane because they
didn’t think the rules applied to them? This entitled
mindset is what Dr. John Townsend, psychologist
and bestselling author, explores in his latest book,
The Entitlement Cure: Finding Success in Doing Hard
Things the Right Way. Phoenix Focus caught up with
him to learn more about what makes people who feel
entitled tick.
PHOENIX FOCUS: The term “entitlement” gets tossed
around in casual conversation and makes the occasional
headline about spoiled children or government
spending, but what exactly is it?
Dr. John Townsend: It comes down to two attributes,
really. The first attribute is that I am not responsible for
my behavior or the implications of it. The second is that
I deserve to be special. I don’t have to wait in the back
of the line. I know people in their twenties and people
in their mid-eighties who are entitled. It has nothing
to do with generation. It’s a human condition, not a
generational condition.
PF: Why do people develop a sense of entitlement?
JT: At a psychological level, what happens—in layman
terms—is we have two buckets inside us. One we call the
real self and the other we call the false self. A person has
passions, desires, strengths and weaknesses. The false
self is also grandiose, self-absorbed and narcissistic.
When a parent praises a child for being pretty, they
didn’t do anything [to be pretty]. When a parent says
you work really hard, love your friends, did a good
job, that is the real self. It took effort. Entitlement is
when there is an overfeeding of the false self and an
underfeeding of the real self.
The same thing happens in the workplace. You have
people now who feel like because they got to work on
time there is supposed to be a party. When bosses do
that, they are feeding the false self.
Both parents and bosses should reserve praise for two
things. One is expended effort—for staying up late,
focusing and working really hard. You praise that, and
you praise success—when someone got the account or
won the game.
PF: Why do parents offer so much praise in the absence
of accomplishment?
JT: Because they think making a child feel good about
themselves all the time is going to win. They get that
wrong. We are finding out now that the self-images of
entitled children are very low. When you dig into their
psyches, you find they are terribly insecure, terribly
afraid of taking on challenges and terribly afraid of
failing, so it’s not working.
PF: How does entitlement impact people’s professional
and personal lives?
JT: They are unable to get and keep the jobs that
could be helping them reach their potential, and they
are having awful relationship conflicts. Entitlement
basically creates a sense that since you are special, you
shouldn’t have to get your hands dirty. This attitude
sabotages success.
PF: So what creates success and reduces entitlement?
JT: When you look at studies on what builds successful
people, one of the things they are very good at is doing
difficult things. And the idea is that to do great business
or to have a great relationship, you have to do difficult
things and roll up your sleeves. That is the cure to
entitlement. The habit of doing what is best rather than
what is convenient to achieve a worthwhile outcome.
That means failing and struggling and doing things you
don’t have a passion for.
You have to stop saying, ‘I deserve’ and start saying,
‘I am responsible.’ I deserve a great marriage and a
great job—deserve is a very disempowering word.
I am responsible to do whatever it takes to have a
great marriage, a great job, to be happy. Now that’s
empowering. The choice is mine and I can do something
about it.
PF: What does choosing to do the difficult thing
look like?
18 PHOENIX FOCUS | Spring 2016
alumni.phoenix.edu 19