Your Ego is Not Your Enemy

[Music]

[Music]

most of us humans

are incredibly hard on ourselves we put

this immense pressure on ourselves to

to perform and to get everything right

and to get the job and get the guy or

girl and whatever

it is and we we put all this pressure on

ourselves

and it even like whenever i get ready to

speak or talk i have this

uh this inner critic in my head that

somehow convinces me that if

i don’t get 10 million views on this and

become the next bernay brown

uh or oprah winfrey or whoever that that

uh i’m an

abject failure i just i’ve blown it i’ve

blown my chance

and you ever find that fascinating

and and maybe for you it’s it’s uh it

was making the team

or getting the job or getting into law

school or

or business school and i don’t know what

it what it was for you but you maybe

felt like this abject failure

if you didn’t do it or you you weren’t

you didn’t measure up if you didn’t do

it

do you ever wonder why that is do you

ever wonder why we are so

hard on ourselves uh it’s it’s almost

like we’ve got this

uh this that our brain is trying to

convince us that and give us provide

enough evidence to prove that we don’t

measure up

and but then what you ever think about

that you ever think like what if your

brain actually gets to enough evidence

to say you don’t measure up do you all

of a sudden

just disappear and die of course not of

course not

but yet we let we let our ego just run

our lives sometimes

and you know this ego it’s it’s this

voice in your head that tells you to

play small

it’s this inner critic it’s this uh it’s

this voice that says that you’re not

good enough

that you don’t measure up and insults

you and calls you an imposter or a fraud

or whatever it is

and for me my my ego would tell me that

you’re not going to make it whether it

was baseball or piano lessons or

um

or going into business or becoming a

speaker

my ego would be so full of criticism

and and i didn’t know what to do with it

and it would call me an imposter and a

fraud and it would

uh it would kind of fill me with this

paralyzing fear

and uh perhaps you’ve been there

perhaps you’ve you’ve wrestled with some

of your own dragons as well

and as much as we may not want to talk

about them we’ve all got these dragons

inside of us it may be your ego

it may be your imposter syndrome

maybe for you it’s anxieties or or a

fear of failure

maybe it’s insecurities or lack of

self-confidence

i wonder what your dragons are in this

season of your life

and then you ever notice that that we

have this default way of

thinking about our dragons so my guess

is if i said hey

we’re gonna talk about your dragons

today my guess is you’re not super

thrilled about it

and if you had a choice between that and

front row seats to a bieber concert

uh we’re not talking about your dragons

and

and so we have these dragons and then we

have this default way of relating to

them

and um you ever noticed so if i if i

said hey let’s talk about your imposter

syndrome or your fears or your anxieties

my guess is that

uh if you’re like me at all you get this

pit in your stomach

and it feels like your uh it’s like

these invisible forces are

are holding you under water

and you can’t even breathe and you feel

like you’re powerless against them

and you just don’t know what to do and

you tried you know a number of different

things to try to figure it out but you

can’t seem to figure it out

and you don’t know what to do and so

you keep you keep just just trying to do

whatever you can

and have you ever wondered

uh if we’ve gotten it wrong with how we

relate

to our ego into our dragons have you

ever wondered if this

have you ever wondered if your ego was

actually

your enemy your imposter syndrome

your anxieties your fears are they

actually out to get you

or have we somehow gotten it wrong

and if there’s anything i’ve learned in

the last 10 years as

i’ve really tried to wrestle with this

whole thing is i’ve learned something

that really struck me the other day and

it was this idea that

that uh that the greatest opportunity

for growth that we have in life

lies in areas that we’re currently wrong

about

our greatest opportunities for growth in

life

lie in areas that we are currently wrong

about

that we but we’re almost certain that

we’re right about them

and and so the path forward really

begins with this idea of

of uh of being not only willing to be

wrong

but but actually searching out the areas

that were wrong actually setting up

systems in our life to find out where

are we wrong

and i’m not talking about as a caveat

i’m not talking about where you’re

completely wrong or right

i’m talking about where are the areas in

your life where you’re one percent wrong

with something

that matters deeply to you and that

might be relationships

that might be in business that might be

some sort of certain impact in the world

but where might you be one percent

wrong and one of these uh situations

came up for me about five years ago

and i i was i was uh i was working with

a therapist

and uh if if you’re if you’ve ever been

to a therapist it’s almost like uh

they hand you like a cheesecake factory

menu and you flip through the pages and

figure out what’s my dragon of the day

you know it’s like this you know page

after page after page of like what are

we going to work on today

and i’ve been coming up against a lot of

these obstacles in my life

at the time and the one that the dragon

of the day if you will was was my ego

and my therapist says uh okay i want you

to i want you to spend some time with

your ego

and i said uh what does that mean and uh

and

i’m from california i’ve lived there for

a decade anyway and so you know we’re a

little bit crazy there

and so this she says i want you just go

spend some time with your ego

and and we’re gonna do a visualization i

was like

okay um and so she’s uh you’re gonna

close your eyes and you’re just gonna

you’re gonna go spend some time with

your ego

and so i closed my eyes and uh and i

and i i mean i don’t know what to do so

i just closed my eyes and start dreaming

stuff up

right and uh and so that i imagine that

i’ve got this dragon

and it’s the dragon’s name is ego okay

all right here we go this is my dream so

i figure all right

ego you’re my enemy you call me names

you insult me you beat me up like

i want you out of my life so i was like

great this is my visualization so i buy

him a one-way ticket to

to the caribbean island so he can drink

margaritas and surf and most of all get

the hell out of my life

and so i’m like this is great i love

these visualizations so i i have this

whole thing i’m almost not even in

control this is just kind of happening

and so i drive ego to the airport and i

park because i’m a nice person i walk

them all the way to the gate and in my

dream

uh tsa doesn’t exist anymore uh and and

so we get all the way to the gate i buy

him a chocolate milkshake because he

loves chocolate milkshakes apparently

and we get all the way to the gate and

we’re sitting there

and uh and soon enough they start

calling for to board that plane

and so ego gets up and uh

apparently nobody thinks it’s weird

there’s like a dragon you know about to

get on the plane and so

he’s he’s walking his way up to the

front of the the line

and as he gets up to the front of the

line he kind of looks back at me he’s

got this like puzzled look on his face

i do not have a puzzle look on my face i

can’t wait to be home free of this thing

that that has been my enemy my whole

life

and so i he gets up to the front he’s

about to scan his boarding pass

and i’m like yeah here we go this is

great i like home free

and he looks back at me with again a

puzzled look and i look back at him i’m

like yeah see you later pal

and have a nice flight and uh he

looks down and goes what about this and

i go what about what

and in in the film it’s like a film you

could like zoom out

and you see that there’s a chain

connected from my leg to

my dragon ego’s leg and i go

oh my what is this and uh and so then

the camera zooms in and it’s got a tag

on it like a mattress tag that if you

take off you’ll go to jail forever

and it says installed by david gerber

cannot be removed under any

circumstances indestructible

and i think indestructible what and

i look back at ego now it’s starting to

get awkward

and uh and i look at him and i have this

moment

and i am just pissed and i’m having

all these emotions flood into me it’s

like i was so close

i’m so close

so ego kind of wanders around a little

bit but he can only go 20 feet because

there’s a chain attached to his leg

and then eventually kind of walks over

and sits next to me

and uh and i go okay well

here we go now we’re gonna do with this

and so we start talking and i just my

first thing was just like man

why are you so means me why are you my

enemy why do you always beat me up

and uh why you always calling me names

and he and he he kind of pauses he goes

wait what he goes

he says you thought i was your your

enemy and i said yeah like wha

why what else would i make of this whole

thing the way you call me names the way

you

uh you know pick on me and tell me i

don’t measure up like what else am i

supposed to make of that

and he goes man you’ve gotten me all

wrong

and i go what and

what he what he begins to do and i’ll

synopsize the story that the

conversation i had with this imaginary

dragon in my head

that changed my life as he basically

said he talked about this difference

between

a sparring partner and a boxing opponent

and

if you were to watch like a sparring

match happening 30 40 feet off you might

think that the sparring partner is

trying to defeat the boxing

or the boxer but the sparring partner is

not trying to defeat the boxers the

sparring partner is trying to

uh is working to train the boxer to be

better for the the boxing match

and so what he was describing is he said

i am not your boxing opponent

i am your sparring partner

and it was in that moment that i

realized

that my ego is not my enemy

my only enemy is when i choose

to see my ego as my enemy

my ego is not my enemy my only enemy is

when i choose

to see my ego as my enemy and then it

reminded me of

of this the philosopher named joseph

campbell who

influenced star wars uh the story of

star wars as well as a number of other

hollywood movies and movies throughout

the world and he said

he said what if what is the point of

life is not to slay our dragons

but rather to dance with them what is

the point of life is not to

slay our dragons but to dance with them

and that that idea blew my mind is like

and i can see my ego as my

enemy and as my boxing opponent is

like drag like a dragon i’ve got a slay

or i can see my ego as my best friend

in my advocate and i can i can choose to

dance with these dragons

that are that have been tormenting my

life

and and so you

you may be sitting there going okay

great my ego is my friend and i can

dance with my dragon so

so now what what do i do with this and i

i’ve been

swinging at this thing for like a decade

through books and mentors and retreats

and therapists and coaches and

and there’s four main things i’ve come

up with and there’s probably tons more

out there and books and that kind of

thing

but there’s four main things that have

come up for me that have been really

powerful one is

is you’ve got to figure out what your

why is it the best way to understand it

is your brain is

heavily addicted to being right and so

if you’re going to prove your brain

wrong

even one percent you’ve got to know why

you’re going to do that

and so that may be relationships with

your with your family your friends that

may be an impact you want in the world

to create in the world might be

something that breaks your heart that

you want to have an impact in

uh and so you’ve got to figure out what

is your like why

why are you going to do this why are you

going to like basically wrestle with

your brain a bit or teach your brain to

dance and stop tormenting you

so that’s number one figure out your why

number two is

uh as you like i don’t think you can do

this outside of mindfulness and

meditation

there’s a there’s a phenomenal book

written called 10 happier

and it’s it’s it talks about how you can

actually train your mind

so that you have a better like a better

like control over it

and it’s similar to working out with

your body your your body can get in

shape and so can your mind and so can

your brain

and the only way i’ve found to really do

that is through mindfulness and

meditation practices

because you’ve got to have you’ve got to

spend time training it so that when it

comes time you can choose to have your

ego be

your your friend versus your enemy

that’s number two uh number three is

you’ve got to be looking for

areas in your life where you’re at least

one percent wrong and you can do that

through mindfulness practices

you can do that through feedback from

friends and colleagues you do that in a

number of different ways

so you’ve got to look for the areas of

your life that you’re one percent wrong

and usually

that opens up a portal for your brain to

find out where you might be five or ten

percent wrong as well or maybe

80 wrong who knows you’ll find out and

then number four is

you’ve got to consciously choose what is

going to consume your curiosity all day

because you you can you can allow this

idea that you’re

you’re you’ve got to slay your dragons

and your ego is your enemy you can allow

that to consume your curiosity

or you can be consumed with this idea

that your ego is your best friend

and that you get to dance with your

dragons

and if you’re willing if you’re one it

could take some time and effort just

like working out like a hard workout

it takes a lot of time and consistency

um

and if you’re willing to do that you’re

going to realize something

you’re going to realize that you’ve been

fighting something your whole life that

you were never designed to fight with

your dragons aren’t for slaying they’re

for dancing with

your dragons aren’t for slaying they’re

for dancing with

and at the beginning i pose this

question if you ever wonder why

we do this and

sometimes there’s probably a lot of

really good answers for this

but sometimes the reason we do something

is simply because we don’t know a better

way

we didn’t know something we didn’t know

a better way existed and so we go with

this default mode and we

we let our dragons torment us

and it’s simply because we didn’t know

there was a better way

but now we do and we can start over

right now