Real Target Tori and Omega Male David Leavitt

Target: are you seriously forcing your employee to re-gift her GoFundME? What’s wrong with you??

In case you live in the real world and not in the de facto divide-and-conquer operation/echo chamber known as Twitter, you may have missed the absolute fiasco that occurred at a Target store in New England last week.

A guy name David Leavitt freaked out and actually called The Cops when a Target store manager wouldn’t honor a ridiculously low and obviously erroneously priced electric toothbrush. It was priced at one cent. Yes, a penny.

Lol:

The police told him they’d testify that they saw the price — oh, at the store manager’s trial? Where she’s charged for … apologizing? Taking responsibility for some poor minimum wage earner who accidentally mispriced merchandise during their overnight shift? Who is this guy?

Here’s who he is — or at least his twitter bio:

 

Yes, he’s a classic omega male: plays magic the gathering (#MTG), but assures us he is a casual player only, publicly humiliates himself with abandon, can’t afford a toothbrush, declares this to everyone and doesn’t feel embarrassed about admitting it, pulls authority figures (police) into drama unnecessarily, feels absoLUTEly certain that people in an authority position are out to get him (i.e. store managers). These things don’t make him a bad person. They indicate that he is a sad person. (And sad people will do bad things, do and say things that hurt others, even when they are desperately trying not to.)

 

That’s when the amazing memesmith known as Carpe Donktum rode up on his twitter steed, and gallantly started a GoFundMe, to send Tori on a vacation because, “anyone who has to deal with this twerp [omega male David Can’t-Leavitt-Alone] definitely deserves one.”

 

If you have a moment, check Carpe’s TL and replies to his original tweet to see how the Daily Beast and other assorted negative Nelly naysayers twisted this and pretended that he was actually going to keep the money for himself, and even lied about reaching out to him for comment, as they tried to portray his good will as something selfish and sordid. But whyyyyyyy, you might ask, did Carpe call David a twerp? A significant label for someone obviously on the far side of mental illness having a very public breakdown over an incorrectly priced electric toothbrush, no? Well, because Leavitt hates Trump. Like many omegas, Leavitt suffers from black and white thinking, where there is no middle ground, where people — politicians and other authority figures, especially — are all good or all bad. And nothing in between. This inability to see reality — to see the Glass of Life as it truly is, as half filled with water and half filled with air — is a personality weakness. A gaping personality wound. But Leavitt is in good company. Many people have this problem.

 

And in contrast, Carpe likes President Trump. And is (I believe, I didn’t check with him) sick of people like Leavitt and other members of the mainstream media lying about Trump. Interestingly, a few Trump supporters suffer from the same black and white thinking as our Omega male, David Leavitt, but in reverse, and see Trump as all good, as a savior. The majority of Trump supporters know that President Trump, because he is human, is not perfect. But they like POTUS’ policies and policy goals. Trump is fearless and strong (this is objectively true, whether a voter approves of his actions and words or not), which is better than perfect. Perfect doesn’t exist so perfect can’t check things off the to-do list. Perfect procrastinates and has the best of intentions but never gets anything accomplished. Fearless and strong is who you call when you want to get shit done.

 

People who were shamed early in life by authority figures for being imperfect often feel compelled to throw public tantrums over perceived external imperfections. Their life, their very existence, has become the crib, and they are still crying out for attention, to Dad (the police, in this example) and Mom (the store manager, Target Tori) to come pick them up and comfort them over something that to you and I would be no big deal, but to them, feels like an outrageous injustice.

 

It’s as sad as it sounds. (If you are a religious or spiritual person as I am, you might take a moment to pray for David and ask God to send him the professional helpers who can assist him in climbing out of the crib and standing on his own feet, so that in his joyful future, he opens his mouth to release words that help others instead of hurt them. “Please God, let David be miraculously healed of all pain and suffering by the power of your love” is a quick prayer we could all send up. Please invoke the deity of your choice, if you wish.)

 

Now back to the actual injustice: David harassing this most likely tired and overworked Target store manager in front of her peers and all the other customers, doxing her in an even larger public square — twitter — and generally succeeding at making her life miserable. People are infuriated. The twitterverse is incensed. The outpouring of support for her in reply to David Leavitt’s nasty tweets is astounding. But while yes, it’s true that twitter is very chatty, money really talks. And soon, subjects of the Twitterdom are getting out their wallets as quickly as they can send tweets. Carpe’s GoFundMe’s original $5,000 goal was met in a day. Then donations doubled. Then quintupled. (Yes, as of this blog publication date, Tori could afford a very excellent adventure indeed with the more than $30k crowdfunded by Carpe and Company.)

 

So, a few days pass and Tori is tracked down and made aware of her good fortune, her reward, as it were, for her patience and good customer service. Carpe announces the good news to his followers and then turns the entire account over to Tori, once he has confirmed with Target Corporate that she is THEE Tori.

 

And then, to my surprise, she tweets  … simply this:

 

In case her tweet mysteriously disappears, I have saved the image and embedded it in my post. I will also transcribe the text below.

 

 

I would like to thank all of you for your generosity. It is inspiring to see so many people united for a good cause.

 

If I have learned anything from this experience, it is that people are good and that these acts of kindness cannot stop with me.

 

I am currently working with resources to find a cause that is worthy of your generosity and something that you would ALL be proud to donate to.

 

Your support has changed my life.

 

Now, my first thought was immediately, “Tori, no, YOU are the cause everyone was proud to donate to. No one made a donation to some other organization, or wanted to. What? Why are you saying this??”

 

But then I read it again, slowly. And the word “resources” stuck out like a red flag from the pit of human resources hell. Ah, yes. Ever worked for corporate America and learned their version of Newspeake? HR “specialists” who say, “On the go-forward, we’ll …” and who ooze, “Thank you for sharing that with me!” in an eerily gleeful response no matter the issue and bark, “What questions can I answer!” instead of asking sincerely, “are there any questions?” And assure everyone in a meeting that, “This is just a high level view. View from a thousand feet.” Yuck. Why don’t they just say, “going forward, we’ll….” or say, “I don’t want to go on and on about boring details, this is just an overview” instead of using language that is literally condescending? Let’s not answer those questions now, let’s instead analyze the text of the message that Target Tori tweeted because there are several indicators that someone who speaks HR Newspeake wrote it, and not a normal person who would have been properly socialized to be able to work directly with customers, face to face, as Tori clearly was.

 

Line 1: “I would like to thank all of you for your generosity.” Fair enough. Saying thank you is always good. “I would like to …” is the HR intro. Normal people tweet, “Thank you so much for …!!” But ok. Not terrible yet. “It is inspiring to see so many people united for a good cause.” This literally isn’t a good cause. Who wrote this? This is everyday people uniting to give Tori a gift of money for having to put up with dickhole behavior. This is not a normal gofundme. Store managers have to put up with horrible customers every day all day. That’s why stores have managers. Literally (and to schedule workers’ shifts). Tori’s car didn’t break down. She’s not crowdfunding a surgery for her kid. There’s no good cause. No one’s homeless or trying to pay for college. This is pure vengeance. This is sticking it to David Leavitt. This is the tribe saying, “David, if you hadn’t been such a dick, maybe someone would have crowdfunded YOU the money to buy an electric toothbrush. But no. So instead we’re going to raise enough money for the woman you treated like shit to buy a MILLION electric toothbrushes.” (Someone, please correct my math — it’s late.) LOL, HR — “good cause.”

Line 2: “If I have learned anything from this experience, it is that people are good and that these acts of kindness cannot stop with me.” There was nothing kind about any single one of the acts of donating money. Generosity? Yes. Kindness? No. TARGET. Do you know what kindness is? LOOK AT YOUR EMPLOYEE, Tori. Look at her face in the photograph Leavitt took, as she humbly and gently tolerates a mentally ill customer’s attempts to humiliate her, in front of her peers and other customers, in your store, after a long day spent constantly on her feet. THAT is the face of kindness. People aren’t good! LOL! (As you well know: remember when you were motivated by greed to lay off half the employees at Target HQ in Minneapolis back in 2017?) Target HR, you lucked out when you hired Tori. TORI is good. Tori is kind. “People” as an aggregate are often neither. And why can’t the acts of kindness stop with her? What weirdo wrote this? It’s rude — impolite — to reject a gift. Are you seriously forcing your employee to re-gift her GoFundME? What’s wrong with you??

 

Target: are you seriously forcing your employee to re-gift her GoFundME? What’s wrong with you??

 

Line 3: “I am currently working with resources to find a cause that is worthy of your generosity and something that you would ALL be proud to donate to.”

First of all, Tori, YOU are the cause that was worthy of everyone’s generosity and not one single person who donated to you wanted their money to be “paid forward.” They wanted YOU to spend it. On YOU. Literally, Carpe specified that he wanted you to use it to go on a vacation away from Target. Is Target unwilling to give you PTO or to let you use your PTO? If that’s the case, then you need to talk to an employment lawyer. PLEASE. If their HR team is coercing you to give YOUR money away, again, please talk to a lawyer. Target doesn’t care about you. They care about THEM and their public relations. A WHOLE SHIT TON of Trump supporters cobbled together $30 grand for their beleaguered employee. They don’t want any PR “complications” (read: blowback) from that fact.

 

But back to the words specifically chosen for line 3: someone, some Head of Human Resources, removed the word “human” before resources because it made it seem like HR was influencing Tori’s decision as far as what Tori will (read: is ALLOWED TO) do with her money. (HER money. Not YOUR money, Target.) But the word pattern takes on a whole new level of sinister when the word “human” is removed. Who or what IS “resources”??? Who or what, indeed, is Tori being forced to “work with” in order to “find a cause”? Gross. My hope is that you the reader can feel the primal pull in your gut when you read the last line, as you imagine the fakiest fake faker of an HR person you’ve ever met pulling Tori off the floor, into a back office, and saying, “We just want to explore the space we’re in as far as gofundme’s in general on the go-forward. So-and-so wanted me to circle back and really engage your thoughts while we thoughtfully path-consider. My hope would be that we can really expand on the team vision while we goal-set and dream-weave and partner in a future that’s 100% focus-based and unity-oriented. Does that make sense? What questions can I answer?”

 

Yeah. No. If you were one of the many people who donated to Tori’s GoFundMe, I hope you will consider sharing this post and then reaching out to her with a kind tweet (reply to @realTargetTori) to let her know that SHE is the good cause, that SHE is worthy of receiving ALL the money and spending it on whatever SHE wants.

 

Here was my response to her this morning:

 

I’m no financial advisor, but that’s what I would wish for anyone who came into an unexpected small fortune. Please, Internet friends and twitter family, let’s not let Target ruin this blessing for Tori.

*****************************************************************

Want to support my work?

My YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/snowangel448

My patreon: https://www.patreon.com/TribalRoles

Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Sarah__Reynolds

Check out tribalroles.com for more!

“Putting the Try in Country, now put the Succeed in Country” https://youtu.be/wWLjx5yGpEM

A Rare Super Alpha Male https://tribalroles.com/2019/03/10/do…

The Three Types of Alpha Males: https://youtu.be/8fylUj70IwY

 

The Sigma Male and the Omega Male: two case studies

This case study is 100% hypothetical and does not refer to any real life individuals.

 

As a reminder (and this is greatly simplifying the roles), alphas lead, betas follow, sigmas get out of the way, and omegas get in the way. Healthy happy Alphas love to guide and protect the people they love, whether the tribe is a family or a team or a flock or a herd or a pack. Healthy happy Betas love to be parents, good employees, part of or on a team, take pride in tribe-contributing accomplishments, such as healthy happy children, long marriages, financial success (and the material indicators, such as new cars, home ownership, vacations, etc.) (most people are Betas). Healthy happy Sigmas live to serve or help the tribe: they are mission oriented and want to know that their life matters (or will matter, after they die) in terms of the overall tribe’s survival (very few people are Sigmas). Happy healthy Omegas want to know that they left tangible evidence of their existence behind upon death: they are amazingly gifted authors, artists, craftspeople, inventors, musicians, directors, playwrights, screenplaywrights, and more!

 

Sigmas and Omegas: as different as night and day, but both are fascinating. My very first viral youtube video was on the Elusive Sigma Male (click here to watch it) and I’ve been receiving requests to make more videos about Sigmas. In contrast, the “lowly” Omega male is one that most men do not want to think they could be. This is shortsighted, of course, because Omegas, when happy, are some of the most creative people on the planet. Now, Omega males can be very socially awkward if they haven’t been trained by a strong authority figure, preferably their father. And Sigmas, because they can see right through people’s personality facade so quickly, often find themselves preferring to avoid people altogether. Now, a wonderful subscriber of my youtube channel commented:

 

Is the main difference between Omegas & Sigmas that the former fall into complete introversion + autonomy because of low self-esteem or to be quirky and creative and unbeholden to success or expectations of success, whereas the latter are innately autonomous and driven and unbeholden to society because they are beholden to no one but their own passionate ambitions that propel them to esteem & success? Would love that video expository exploration!

I like this simplification, and I agree with it about 85%.

The thing that separates a healthy and happy omega from a “hater and a loser” and a healthy and happy sigma from being a lone wolf is whether or not they have learned humility, or failing that, accepting the power dynamics of the tribe as they are (accepting “reality,” as it were). For example, an omega male can get caught up in Pick Up Artistry and often resent that some people have more and some people have less. They get very hung up on the injustice of life instead of realizing how lucky they are to wake up in the morning not paralyzed, not wearing a diaper, not living in a war zone, etc. They have to feel so loved by their early authority figures in order to realize that they too can matter to the tribe, that they too can contribute. Sigma males know instinctively that they have an edge on other people — and get this, dear reader — they also think that’s unfair, that that imbalance of power is strange and unfortunate. In contrast to Alphas, Sigmas feel obligated to use this advantage to help others. Sigmas are often smarter and stronger and understand how to motivate others to cooperate (and when they’re in a dark place, to manipulate others to do their bidding) better than the other members of the tribe. The Alpha of the tribe will recognize this a mile away and want the Sigma to contribute their unique gifts, for the greater good (the survival) of the tribe OR if it’s a bad Alpha, to exploit the skills of the Sigma to advance the Alpha’s personal agenda. The Sigma will do very bad things if it means expressing the ability to demonstrate their loyalty (let’s dive deeper and explore what it really is at its core: LOVE) for the tribe. And they will also do very good things for the same reason. Sigmas operate in the Gray Area. That said, there is a dark place that is not gray: you will find lone wolf Sigma terrorists and assassins-for-hire there (have you ever seen the Blacklist? Most of the criminals on that show are Sigma Males — and of course, the writers have developed the Raymond Reddington character to himself embody the quintessential Lone Wolf Sigma Male archetype. However, Sigmas usually have to feel betrayed by the tribe to go completely off grid.

 

Now Omegas are a different story: it’s vital that they have strong authoritative parents. The irony is that because the Omega male’s mom often feels instinctively that there is something off (weak) about her son, that she unconsciously (or consciously) displays disgust or regret in her body language and facial expressions, and this imprints him with the sense of self statement, “I am not wanted.” Then when he goes out into the world, he behaves in ways that reflect that sense of self. People — teachers, classmates, siblings, cousins, and other relatives — pick up on it, and also behave/react accordingly. I have a very special place in my heart for omegas, but even in the healthy contributing ones, there’s always an aura of vulnerability around them. They were bullied (and/or coddled) as kids. And the people who leapt in front of them on the playground when they were being bullied as kids? Sigmas. Frankly, it’s better for the tribe if the Omega male was coddled as a mama’s boy growing up; he may never be able to fall in love with a woman his own age but at least he won’t grow up to rape and murder them. Yes, most serial killers are Omega males. How is this different from a Sigma male sharpshooter who also kills a lot of people, but at the behest of the Alpha? That person is motivated by a mission. Serial killers are motivated by rage. For some reason, the Sigma feels that the people he’s killing have to die for the greater good of the tribe. Omega stalkers, rapists, murderers, etc., were born “broken” as it were. It’s fair to say that death, murder, and crime permeate our modern society, and, that you can be sure the majority of these acts generally trace back to an Omega or a Sigma culprit. But let’s be very clear here: most Sigmas and Omegas will never kill a single solitary soul in their lives.

 

How Sigmas Feel Power

Sigmas literally feel power. This is what it’s like for a Sigma to be in a large group, for example, mingling at a party or at a get-to-know-you event: Imagine walking through a fabric store and running your fingertips along velvet, feeling how soft it is, then along silk, feeling how smooth it is. Then along velcro and feeling how rough it is. Where Alphas have an inner weakness detector and hone in on a person’s most easily exploited flaw (or their greatest strength), Sigmas have a more nuanced way of detecting power and its many expressions, including authority and influence. They’re each different and that’s a secret kept from the majority of people. In a room of a hundred people, a Sigma will feel authority like a smooth piece of silk, power of influence like a soft velvet pillow, and they’ll feel weakness, including obsequiousness, pretension, deception, poseurs, haters and wannabes like rough sandpaper chafing their skin. What’s actually happening is the power deficit acts as a vacuum; those omegas in the room who wish they were pleasant likable betas or powerful alphas or betas who are dissatisfied with being mid-totem pole betas with some degree of influence who want to “gear up” for that next level, emanate a weird energy that is as distracting as the sound an actual vacuum would make. Everyone in the tribe emits a different signal and the Sigma walks around the room absorbing this information about them. The guilt that clings to the aura of an adulterous beta emits a signal to a Sigma. Or how about the sexual fantasies of a fellow sigma? Or the secret vengeful plots of the Alpha? Yes, and yes. Anything having to do with power, control or authority will flag the Sigma male’s radar.

 

How Omegas Feel Weakness

When Omega males are unhappy and unhealthy, power is all they think about it. They are absolutely positively 100% sure that everyone is a beta cuck (or just “beta” which is commonly used as a synonym for weak and easily dominated) and they, the omegas, are ALPHA (insert the sound of chest-beating here). Until they accept power dynamics within the tribe as they are, they might see the world and everyone in it as falling into Category A: people who have more than they do (more money, more sex, more power/status, more love and more luck), and Category B: the little old Omega, by themselves, so unlucky in life and love. As we know, omega wolves are essential to the pack. The Omega wolf eats last — but always eats! Why do they eat last? Because they aren’t as skilled at hunting. So it’s only fair (I actually think it’s terrible but no one asked me). Now, did they vote as a pack on this ranking? LOL, you know they didn’t. And the Alpha wolf or wolves (usually a pair bond of an alpha male and alpha female) didn’t decree it — wolves don’t have benevolent monarchs. But the omega wolf instinctively knows his value, contributes accordingly and is protected accordingly. As humans, we need strong Alpha leadership to make sure omegas see their value, realistically, and are rewarded with praise and also with tangible objects/money. Omegas can 100% contribute to the tribe and leave the world better than they found it. It’s just that those two goals are not usually on their list (until they get strong mentorship, apprenticeship, and figure out how to get healthy and happy).

 

Omegas want to be famous

For Omega males, it’s not enough to be respected (and preferably feared), they want to be famous! And I do mean, famous. They want to be recognized while walking down the street. (The last thing Sigmas want is to be famous. In fact, that’s how you know you’re not a Sigma: if you want to be famous!*.) If you want to see a bunch of omegas trying to be famous, go to Instagram and you will see what many refer to as “instafamous.” Tips for Omega males on Insta offering coaching or selling through an MLM business: please no pics of you buttoning a jacket … half way. No looking into the distance wearing sunglasses with your chin tilted up. No short sleeves unless you have man arms (some omega males are of slight stature, and have neither broad shoulders nor the capacity for getting “built.” It would be worth every penny to hire a personal trainer who would coach you on the protein powder and strength training routine necessary to get rid of those “girl” arms.) Please no beard!! Freshly shaven and a big happy smile will sell every ware you’re trying to hock. Everything else looks insincere and has the opposite effect of the one you want: it repels rather than attracts.

A sigma male and an omega male walk into a bar

The following is 100% hypothetical and does not refer to any real life individuals. Both of these single men are smart, funny, can laugh at themselves, are ambitious, and have moms who love them and taught them to always believe in themselves and make the world a better place. Each of them became frustrated with the amount of mis- and dis-information out there in the vast interwebs regarding news and current events in their 20’s. Each of them started a website, replete with paid journalists, to cover the topics they believed were unethically and immorally being censored by the mainstream media. The Sigma male was able to focus 100% on the task at hand, ignoring emails, social media and phone calls (but not texts from sources on the burner phones) while writing and editing. The Omega male compulsively checked social media, devastated when he didn’t get likes, shares and retweets. Each of them was brave, compassionate and passionate. Each of them knew how to gain the trust of sources and prove over and over again that they were reliable and consistent. Each of them briefly covered on their news site what many in the mainstream media labeled a conspiracy theory, but each had a source from within the intelligence community giving them verifiable information that this horrific thing was more fact than fiction. One day, the Sigma’s source reached out and said, it’s time to stop reporting on this. We’re working on it behind the scenes. Stop for now. The same day, the Omega’s source reached out and said, it’s time to stop reporting on this. We’re working on it behind the scenes. Stop for now. The Sigma said, Why, this is huge??? We need to break this. The source said, we don’t, and drawing more attention to it now could endanger you and your ability to keep your website up, running and funded. It’ll all come out in the end. Don’t worry. The Omega said, Why, this is huge??? We need to break this. The source said, we don’t, and drawing more attention to it now could endanger you and your ability to keep your website up, running and funded. It’ll all come out in the end. Don’t worry. The Sigma, being mission oriented and motivated by the greater good was pissed off but reflected that this source had never not come through before and he certainly didn’t want to risk being unable to report on all the other great stories he had coming down the pipeline from a variety of sources. The Omega, being motivated by getting even with all the people who told him he’d never be anything and equally motivated to be part of the retribution process of exposing the alleged criminals he’d been investigating, was devastated. This was literally the only story he’d been working on. He couldn’t give it up. He started to feel paranoid. Even though he’d received years of helpful leads from this IC source, he now started to wonder if the person was really who they said they were. Maybe he’d been duped all this time? So he doubled down. He livestreamed, blogged and obsessively reported only on this one topic.

Compare & Contrast: the Sigma was motivated by the desire to FIGHT corruption whereas the Omega was motivated to EXPOSE the corruption. Sigmas are warriors. They don’t care who gets credit for the winning as long the fight is won. Omegas have this icky vengeance-based tendency toward self-sabotage. They want the credit. They want to prove to everyone who ever doubted them or bullied them that ARE strong, that they ARE powerful.

Bonus Sigma & Omega case studies, again, hypothetical and not based on any real human beings, dead or alive:

Once upon a time there was a Sigma male, so smart that he was often accused of having a photographic memory. He would chuckle and say, “I don’t think so” (wink wink). As a brilliant shrew person and a lawyer, he had every opportunity to make serious bank working for a private firm and yet he chose public service because he believed he could perform substantive work for the greater good of society. As he got closer to middle age, he realized that the system was inefficient and indeed broken on more levels than he cared to count, and, if he admitted it to himself, he had known this for several — ok, many — years. (The Sigma male will stay until the last moment of making a difference, however small. Once that time expires though, he’s out.) Finally, his Alpha, the one who had been keeping him in public service, retired and our Sigma male found himself afloat in a sea of a whole new kind of gray area. He could stay in public service but it would mean a lack of mission. If he was going to give that up, he might as well go into business for himself and make boatloads of money. That was the quandary he faced, as a confident, savvy, attractive, financially secure man who had never married or had children. Remember, Sigmas always know if you have an ulterior motive, so it’s very hard for Sigma males to ever fall deeply in love; if the person who is displaying amorous intent is either under a delusion and is in love with the idea of the Sigma and does not see him for who he really is OR desires marriage to him for any reason other than love, he will end the relationship eventually and may remain single forever! Sigmas are not afraid to be alone. Compare this to Betas who prefer to be in a relationship rather than out of one, and usually will not leave one unless there’s another one ready and waiting on the back burner. Yes, Betas are the members of the tribe who are most likely to cheat!

Once upon a time there was an Omega male who, simply put, gave his coworkers the creeps. He had BO and there was a reason. On his lunch break, he would go to the gym, work out, not shower, and then put on an old windbreaker over his clothes. In other words, he did shower, he did wear deodorant, he did wear Axe body spray (unfortunately for everyone in his periphery) but only in the morning. So for the first half of his workday, he only smelled like an 8th grade boy just now learning about how to make sure he didn’t smell by buying whatever was most flashily packaged at CVS. But for the second half, there was a whole different kind of scent. He wanted to feel needed to the point of being indispensable and so he would create elaborate exel documents to “help” his coworkers. Some of them were quite amazing and time-saving! He was very smart. And he kept a journal. With him. At work. He took it every where. And documented his day, throughout the day in teeny tiny handwriting on unlined pages with no margins and almost no space between the lines. He would glance up from his writing, his face blank as he focused on one team member or another, and then stare back down at his book, scribbling diligently away. What happened? He had experienced a profound loss, the loss of a high pressure public service job where he had been helping people from the dominant position in the power dynamic. He had loved the feeling of being in control and having the upper hand in a literal life or death situation. He loved that he could hesitate for just a few second before taking action, and it gave him the most incredible feeling of being alive. His supervisors observed this and let him go. He was absolutely devastated, and cried as they escorted him out of the building. He went home to his parents (because he still lived at home in his late 20’s) and his father berated him, screaming at him for having no job and still living at home. Later his mom hugged him and told him she would always love him, and everything would be ok, gently rocking him and assuring him that he never had to move out if he didn’t want to. Once he found the new job, he wore the jacket that came from the old job (with the emblem that meant status and a sense of pride and accomplishment emblazoned on the front) every day over his wrinkled dress pants and button down shirt after he finished working out, positive that it kept other people from smelling his post-workout sweatiness.

Bottom Line: Omegas and Sigmas both do well with mentorship. A Sigma will fight and scratch and claw their way to making a difference in the world, no matter what. Even if they have to work a day job for the rest of their lives and personally bankroll the meetup for whatever world-improving cause they’re waving a flag for. That is not the case with Omegas. They want the recognition. They need it. Ideally, they would be mentored or else be placed under the auspices of an Alpha who can manage some of their expectations and impulsiveness. (Note that healthy happy Omegas, especially those in a committed long term relationship, experience feeling much more patience and a stronger desire to engage in long term planning.) A Sigma who is taking huge risks without a long term plan is either untethered from the tribe but still wants to make a difference by going “all in” OR is punishing the tribe for its betrayal by withholding their warrior gifts. Sigmas do well with a Sigma mentor but they sure do love having an Alpha boss!

*It’s unwise to categorize people’s tribal role until they turn 25 because the brain does not finish growing until age 25. Our personality does not “set” until age 25. For example, yours truly as a teenager wanted to be president when she grew up, thinking this was the way to fix the problems of the world. It became clear to me later in life that this was not a logical conclusion upon further examination. That being said, a very strong Alpha could absolutely change the world as POTUS, for better or for worse — irrevocably.