16 Lessons on Selling (and Life) from My 5-Year-Old

Personal essay about McCormick’s five-year-old son Dev selling handmade “Donut Hats” at a Brooklyn playground. Written for the X $1M article prize. Dev, who dreams of building planets and has a business plan with gross margin calculations, learns sales through playground rejection and iteration.

Core Argument

Real sales wisdom emerges from direct experience: handling rejection gracefully, collecting customer feedback, adapting pricing, leveraging social proof, and maintaining enthusiasm despite setbacks. Dev’s sixteen dictated lessons distill principles that most adults overcomplicate.

RDCO Relevance

Minimal direct relevance. Entertaining personal narrative. The “setback list” concept (systematically documenting rejection feedback) is a useful mental model for any iterative process including content strategy and product development.