You need ego to be great
I often write about how ego can lead to many pitfalls and downfalls. You get to a comfortable point in your life and then the ego starts making you think that you’re better than you think you are, and it all starts crashing down from there.
Or you think you deserve your successes because of you and you alone. Your string of successes has blinded you that it was a combination of luck, hard work, connections, and patience that got you there. I’ve been down this road too many times and each time, I’ve been humbled. All of it can change in a second if we’re not conscious of the ego which can lead us to ignorance and arrogance.
But it’s important to note the benefits—the other side of the coin for ego, which is the push it gives us to be great, or even more important, the will to try something outlandish. It’s the ego that gives us the confidence to pursue tough things and to even ignore doubt-sayers. The ego is necessary for things worth accomplishing, and we all need it to be great.
To try or not to try
Stay hungry. Stay foolish.
This famous line by Steve Jobs embodies the ego and how it can drive you to do the unimaginable. People with a big ego are never satisfied with what they got and will take risks in order to achieve new goals.
There’s a very thin line between humbleness and being unsatisfied with what you have. The latter is what pushes us to heights we’ve never seen before. The audacity to think that you can do way better than this is a key ingredient to change the world.
That same ego produced the iPhone, the automobile, reusable rocket ships, and now artificial intelligence. Granted there comes a point where absolute arrogance will destroy you. Some examples, include Blockbuster, any VCR company, and most recently, NFT absolutists.
Things will work until they don’t. The fear of something not working out is enough for people to not even make an attempt. Failure is not only stressful but also debilitating to one’s confidence. But it’s only through trials and tribulation that you get to learn and make things better.
The willingness to fail over and over again is a mindset that’s vital for future success. Take the Amazon phone—it was a hot mess and that was discontinued after 1 year. But it was through the phone that they were able to create the Echo, which sold over 50 million units.
You should almost expect to fail anytime you try anything. You can use ego to fuel this trait of tenacity.
I call it the “F it” trait. If someone ever tells you that something is impossible or if you’ve done something for hours with no signs of progress, the “F it” trait kicks in and motivates you to continue.
It’s important to note the trait doesn’t mean mindlessly running into a brick wall every time, it’s to continue to persevere by using all types of thinking and methods. To not change your method and expecting a different result would be insanity.
It could be better
Ego also pushes us to constantly improve something because it never feels satisfactory with the status quo. I remembered watching a documentary about the creation of the iPhone and how Steve Jobs was constantly making their engineers start from scratch after months of hard work simply because they had to pivot strategies. Or how he forced them to make it smaller with one button as the engineers stated that it was an impossible task.
Apple engineers ended up completing the task and the rest is history.
People who build and create great things are never satisfied. Sure, they might celebrate success, but then it’s back to work to improve things. The incentive is internally driven. They don’t need anyone to tell them to make it better—they’ll constantly seek it out.
I used to think this type of thinking was normal for everyone—why wouldn’t you want to make things better? Until I worked for the state and got my answer.
Like anything that’s meaningful, making improvements is work—sometimes, a lot of work. There are also no incentives to improve something. Incentives motivate people and inspire action. If someone was to pay you to make something better, you’ll probably do it, right? I wish this was the case, but we see too many examples in which more and more money was thrown at a program to see it ineffective as ever. *cough looking at you San Francisco’s homeless department cough*
If we also add that it’s also time-consuming and might not bear any fruit, it’s understandable to see why people don’t do it. You’re asking someone to take self-initiative for no extra money, and it’ll be lots of work and time, and may not even work. That’s a tall ordeal to ask of anybody.
Regardless of those factors, it’s the ego that helps us push through. This type of thinking is needed when things are stagnant. Especially in areas where the culture is slow-moving with lots of pushback against change. That’s why it’s tough to enact change in state and county environments where it’s rewarded to be safe.
Safety, however, will allow people to justify doing things for the illusion of safety. I had a friend tell me about how his procurement department for the state will only give contracts out to the lowest bidder. His superiors told him it was to make the best use of the taxpayer’s money. Turns out, the lowest bidder’s items were usually lower in quality and thus needed to be replaced and bought many times over, and resulted in them spending even more money than intended. They didn’t choose quality and spent more, but they could tell the public that they always choose the lowest bidder for the public’s convenience.
Dare yourself
What’s important is that you don’t have to make it your life’s mission to change the world. It isn’t a bad thing that you decide to do that but, there is still lots to gain from looking at aspects of your life and deciding that you can be better.
It doesn’t matter if you’re proficient at it or if it’s a task that is a bit mundane. Regardless of if it’s learning to cook better meals or learning how to wash dishes, challenge yourself to not be satisfied with the current iteration and have the ego to challenge yourself to be better.
What can be better? What things need to change? Dare yourself to ask these questions and start implementing the changes. We can use the ego to promote actions and you’ll start to see how it trickles into other aspects of your life.
Asking yourself how you can be world-class at any task you do is a good attitude to have. Stapling papers, taking out the trash, it doesn’t matter, we aim to be world-class at it.
We only have so much time here, let’s aim to be great.
*Check out my last article on The art of getting things done*
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