Jumping Off Your Ego
There is a famous joke in South America which goes like this: “if you really want to make a profit, buy Argentinians for what they’re actually worth and sell them for what they believe they’re worth”. Another joke says: “the most efficient way to kill an Argentinian is to take them up to the top of their egos and push them”. Which is reasonably unfair, as most these over-generalizations are, yet funny. In Argentina, there is a belief that our reputation abroad has been somewhat dented by the behavior of a small group of objectively arrogant big city dwellers. But here we are. As the phrase goes: it takes many good deeds to build a good reputation, and only one bad one to lose it.
What is ego anyway? This article is not about ego in the Freudian sense1. Freud was fond of explaining the ego by way of analogy —our ego was the rider on a horse, with our unconscious drives representing the animal while the ego tried to direct them. Modern psychologists, on the other hand, use the word “egotist” to refer to someone dangerously focused on themselves and with disregard for anyone else. All these definitions are true enough but of little value outside a clinical setting. The ego we see most commonly goes by a more casual definition: an unhealthy belief in our own importance. Arrogance. Self-centered ambition. Ego is that intangible, strong self-assurance of our own prominence. A biased self-perception leading us to believe that things revolve around us, that we are better than, bigger than, wiser than. It’s the gap between the price we think we’re worth versus our actual market price.
Copernicus stated2 some centuries ago that nothing indicates we occupy a privileged spot in the Universe. His theory caused a few waves back in the day, mostly because it challenged theologically originated theories which stated that Earth was the central thing (ultimately anthropocentric theories). Copernicus theory's most itchy takeaway was, and still is: everybody chill, we are not that special.
And this is mainly because the Universe, at the largest scale, shows no hierarchy: basically it’s all quarks and fundamental forces. Gravity does not really give a damn if you are a composition of neutrons, protons and electrons, atoms, cells, tissues, organs. Gravity pulls all the particles you’re made of the same way it pulls the particles your dog is made of; gravity does not understand nor cares where you end and your dog begins, and the same applies for all other fundamental forces: a given point in the Universe holds no privilege compared to another point. Equality at its best.
But on this planet, and more specifically in Society and in organizations, we had the marvelous idea of inventing hierarchies, which are like small artificial planetary systems and such arrangements are fundamentally, bear with me here, non-copernican: there are indeed privileged observers, who occupy very special places. Not two chairs picked randomly in an office may hold the same privileges. It will depend which chairs you pick. Companies form stars of sorts, and such stellar status can form stellar egos. In reality, we are *all* equipped with our egos, regardless where we sit in the hierarchy. It is just that hierarchical systems empower and enable a small few to fully flex and feed their egos whereas it will forbid many others from even considering trying. Inequality at its best.
Richard Feynman stated that the first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and that you are the easiest person to fool. Our egos fool us by setting expectations which are disconnected from objective reality, and create internal, individual agendas which collectively seldom add up. What might be best for the collective may (and frequently will) collide with my own personal assessment on how that affects or benefits me, and I might decide to choose whatever massages my ego instead of choosing what’s best for the greater good.
The relationship between ego, talent, confidence and competence is a tricky one. Someone confident and highly talented can be mistaken as having a big ego, and vice versa. You may think that it could be “allowed” for someone to have a big ego because they have accomplished a lot, or because they know a lot.
Wrong.
On the contrary, true achievement begets humility. The more someone has genuinely accomplished, the further their ego shrinks. Mainly because true achievement implies that you have gone a long way learning, failing, trying, dealing with the elements and, finally, succeeding. Going through all that should make you very aware of the complexities you have managed to overcome, the alliances you have had to form, and the odds you have managed to bend. A strong ego from a theoretical “achiever” might be an indication we’re actually in front of a lucky one who probably rode a stroke of luck, or is just in a privileged spot. Or, maybe someone who just suffers some emotional impairment: the glorified difficult “genius”, who tends to lack the basic emotional skills to contribute to the collective with their talent in a healthy way. Inflated, bloated egos can be facades; false fronts built to hide behind, because of reasons. A scenography in a perpetual state of maintenance. This manifests in multiple ways: inability to take criticism, defensiveness, constant rank-pulling, empire building.
Ego can be a ballast. And I am not here for the mindfulness-esque “get rid of your ego” type of bullshit. You can’t get rid of it. It’s there, and will stay. Just be aware of it, for it is riding the horse most of the time. Think of Copernicus next time you feel you are a special snowflake. Your ego could be feeding from a privileged spot you’re currently occupying, which won’t last forever. The landing may not be gentle.
Ego pulls hard. It keeps organizations in pseudo-brownian motion: a motion governed by the internal agenda of each member with an energy proportional to the gap between what they believe they’re worth, versus what they are actually worth.