Be Careful Of Your Ego When Things Are Going Your Way

As with most of my articles, this has been a constant thought in my mind ever since I first read it in an article I found on Medium (which I unfortunately cannot find) and an Instagram caption of one the highly skilled rugby players in the world, Quade Cooper (Australian Rugby’s Playmaker). Are we feeling “Too Good” when things are going our way. It’s an interesting thing to actually process over when you actually think about it. Our society is flooded with positivity in every corner and by corner, I’m obviously talking about social media. Everybody is talking about some motivational crap, everybody’s got positivity in the name of “mental health” and we got some “positive content” from some “influencers” who have actually been verified by Facebook.

By the way, I’m not here to shit on everybody’s parade and tell everyone to start being “pragmatic” because the truth is being pragmatic is a tricky game to play and the fine line between pragmatism and negativity is so thin, even you’d take a while to dive into your subconscious to figure it out.

But yeah, are we feeling “Too Good” when things are going our way? I want you to process it and really think about it. Are we on cloud nine making ourselves feel like we are freaking geniuses when in reality, anyone who actually used their brain effectively could’ve just as easily done what you have done? And probably done it better and more effectively?

A perfect example in my life, in business, sales is the deciding factor for the success of any business. There is no business without it. But personally to me, I have an emotional attachment to it, you could say even an unhealthy attachment to it. Without it, I feel like I’m worthless and I have felt like that quite often, sometimes even for long stretches of time. With that emotional attachment to it, it comes with a need for positivity all the time because you constantly want to be good at it, you constantly want numbers raking in and you absolutely don’t want someone with less experience than you bringing higher numbers than you (my team is probably seeing is and they know exactly what I’m talking about), and let’s imagine a scenario where you do bring the numbers in, how do you feel? You obviously feel pretty good and you should, you feel like you are on top of the mountain and you feel like you are the best which is completely a human feeling.

But here’s where the problem comes, that feeling of positivity you just felt can be dragged on a lot longer and actually start holding you back. You start dwelling on that so much that you start forgetting that there’s plenty more objectives you are yet to complete down the road. You want to hold onto that positivity and you take the steps to the next objective real slow.

Have I bummed you out? I apologize if I have and if I haven’t, there’s more just bare with me.

Something which I’ve instructed the team on especially when it comes to work I’m directly involved in, I want no validation not because I don’t enjoy it but because I know, that could’ve just as easily been luck or it’s simply a ROE (Return On Effort : Do Your Part And Maybe A Little More And The Rest Will Be Taken Care Of), no magical formula to make me feel like a freaking guru or whatever, just Return on Effort. Anybody could do it.

Kumar Sangakkara, probably one of the best batsmen to ever play the game of Cricket who had a cover drive which was just beautiful to witness. He mentioned something beautifully in one of his Sky Sports Interviews when asked about talking about cricket and it’s future.

He said sometimes we think too much of ourselves , we start to think we have a certain right and entitlement to comment on the game, be part of the game and to share our views and opinions like they are important and when in reality, you’re not important. Your time has come and your time has gone and it ends there.

Makes you think, doesn't it? Why do we sometimes feel the need to feel like we are so freaking special? Leaders want to be “influential”, people want to be famous, everybody wants to feel like they are “intelligent”. The social media dopamine ain’t helping either. Look at the number of these bullshit e-magazines who jump at the opportunity to write an article on whoever is getting some engagement on their social media pages.

By the way, I’m not taking anything away from them, we all have our own thing which we are probably good at and you should be recognized for it because you will eventually need that PR to monetize it.

But then there’s the other side, Chamath Palihapitiya (Sri Lankan born Billionaire) said that society starts giving people gold stars which shows the world you are a genius, you are a person of importance and you add something to the table nobody in the world can, and when you start getting the social validation and recognition from these gold stars, then your mindset starts switching to being more protective about the “powerful seat” the gold star gives you rather than adding more value and then more value. Mind you, adding value is how you start with anything you want to do with your life and if you really think about it, adding value is probably the most important element.

Here’s the thing, sometimes it’s nobody’s fault that we start to feel excessively good when things seem to be going our way. People with shitty childhoods without any sort of praise can leave you hungry for it, sometimes you need it because it keeps you going and it takes some insane sense of self awareness for you to draw the line saying now this is going towards “false positivity and I don’t need it”. Sometimes people will have empathy on us because we’ve had it rough and they want us to keep our head up no matter what the life’s waves throw at us, so it’s understandable.

I’ve realized that the only validation, appreciation recognition and most importantly support we need are not from society itself but from the people closest to our hearts. People whose opinions matters to you, people who keep it real and people who put you in your place when you need to be put because that is the only way you’re going to be better or at least try to be better. What good is it going to do for you when you want to do something significant in your life but everyone’s too busy giving you a false sense of positivity?

There’s someone very special in my life who unconsciously does something for me and I love that about her. Very randomly while we text each other or call, she would say “ Get Back to Work” it may seem like she’s trying to be holier than thou but honestly it’s keeping me in check. To show me that you are not special, you still have to put in the work, it does not matter how far up the ladder you go, you have to stay grounded and it has kept me grounded more times than I can count.

I’ll finish up now.

To summarize, be careful of your ego on the days where things seem to be going your way. That’s probably when you need to try the hardest to stay grounded. We all want to feel good, sometimes even excessively so. You start getting praise, you start getting recognition and you start feeling proud. Then you get entitled and you start losing your way. Understand that as much as the good days exists, the bad ones exists too. Take them as it comes and don’t dwell on it too much because at the end of the day, you’ll be starting from Zero all over again the next morning.

I hope you guys enjoy this.

Much Love!

Azfar